深河

— 初寫於2023年，英譯於2026年 —

UDN部落格近來不太穩定，一直聯不上新版，只能回來用舊版，彷彿回到最初。起始，我給部落格取名為「微塵世界」，筆名「好希望」，這名字除了呼應自己所在的開普，也有前程樂觀的光明，更有難得欲求之希冀。沿用迄今十餘年，直到最近才更換，只留「微」字。微小微妙，或許就是最初想要的意思。所以我將微塵世界改成微風岸，筆名改成深河。深河曲折從山中來，流經門前濕地而後大海。開普敦以好望角舉世聞名，深河卻不然，世人見它流過沙洲流過木橋，多不知其名。

深河與我的本名也有淵源：閃電轟雷落下，震動四方，雨水流瀉大地，撫平了所有缺陷，並以雷霆萬鈞之勢，不盡長江滾滾來，湍流的水啊湍流而逝，逝向生命的大海。小時候不太明白，外公起的名字筆畫繁多，覺得特殊而奇怪，直到年歲漸長，愈來愈喜愛。然而來到國外，多是稱呼外文名，本名倒不常用了。

深河有木橋，橋上凝視桌山夕落，別有景致。夕陽餘暉，映照山前，澄黃的光均勻灑落，空茫一片。光在山岩折射，隨著時間角度變化色澤，散發醉心的柔和。黃昏點亮岸邊的路燈，這裡沒有絢麗光廊，只有溫暖的鵝黃，暈染逐漸深邃的水波。人在深河，痴痴望著，散步山水之間忘情忘我，也是人生一樂。

我期許的微風岸，書寫景色實則書寫靈魂，沿途風光純粹自然，它是漂泊的靈魂歇下的休憩所。那裡綠草如茵，那裡微風輕拂，晴空瀲灩，狂風偶爾暴雨，風光所以無限。

若問為何而寫？為誰而作？若要認真回答，我會不知所措。偶爾會覺得，文字中活出另個生命，他與現實相去甚遠，應該說是理想的自己，借由寫文來凝結散亂的思緒，昇華塵世的情感。他是深河，是流淌的微風岸，來自無限寬廣，雷震轟隆而瀟瀟灑下，湍流奔馳而大海回歸。

提及微風岸，自然想起子美的詩，細草微風岸，危檣獨夜舟。人生這趟，汎若不繫之舟，願能縱一葦之所如，多麼嚮往的之所如啊！深河流淌而我在斜陽夕暮，寄情此身於開普，頹敗儘管這個國度。且容我再垂首沉思，天地一沙鷗，它的歸宿！

Dieprivier

— First written in 2023, translated into English in 2026 —

The network connection on UDN Blog has been unstable lately. I kept failing to reach the new version of the site, and found myself returning to the old one—as though coming back to the beginning.

At the beginning, I named this blog World of Dust, and wrote under the name Good Hope. The name answered to where I was—the Cape, whose headland the world knows as the Cape of Good Hope—and it carried something forward-looking, something of brightness ahead, and something of longing for what is rare and difficult to reach. I kept both names for more than ten years. Only recently did I change them, keeping just the one character: wei—small, subtle. Perhaps that was the meaning I wanted from the start. And so World of Dust became Shore of the Gentle Breeze, and my name became Dieprivier—Deep River.

The Dieprivier winds down from the mountains, passes through the wetlands at my door, and flows to the sea. Cape Town is known to the world for the Cape of Good Hope. The Dieprivier is not known to the world. People see it pass over sandbars and beneath wooden bridges, and most do not know its name.

The name has its own connection to my given name. Lightning strikes, thunder moves through the earth in all directions, rain pours across the land and smoothes every fault. Then with the force of ten thousand thunderclaps, the waters of an endless river roll onward—turbulent waters rushing and passing, rushing toward the great sea of life. As a child I did not quite understand. My grandfather had chosen a name with many strokes, and it seemed peculiar and strange to me. As the years passed, I came to love it more and more. But here in a foreign country, I go mostly by my foreign name. The given name is rarely used now.

There is a wooden bridge over the Dieprivier. Standing on it, watching Table Mountain at sunset, is its own kind of scene. The last light of evening falls evenly across the face of the mountain, washing everything in a clear amber. Light refracts off the rock face, shifting in colour as the angle of the sun changes, radiating a softness that moves the heart. At dusk the lamps along the bank come on—no brilliant corridor of light, only a warm goose-yellow, bleeding slowly into the deepening water. Standing on the Dieprivier, simply gazing, wandering in heart and body between mountain and water, forgetting oneself—this too is one of lifes pleasures.

What I hope Shore of the Gentle Breeze to be: a place where the writing of landscape is in truth the writing of the soul. The scenery along the way is purely natural. It is a resting place where a wandering spirit can set itself down. There the grass is green. There a gentle breeze moves. The sky opens and shimmers. Sometimes the wind rises and the rain comes hard. And because of all this, the view is without limit.

If asked why I write—for whom I write—if pressed for a real answer, I would not know where to begin.

There are moments when I feel that within the writing, another life is being lived. That life is far from the one I actually live. He is, perhaps, the self I would wish to be—using the writing to gather what is scattered in thought, to lift what is earthly in feeling toward something higher. He is the Dieprivier. He is the flowing Shore of the Gentle Breeze. He comes from somewhere vast and open—thunder breaking, rain pouring down, turbulent water racing onward, returning at last to the sea.

Speaking of the Shore of the Gentle Breeze, I cannot help but think of Du Fus lines:

Fine grass, a shore of gentle breeze;
a tall mast, a lone boat in the night.

This journey of a life—adrift like an unmoored vessel. How I long for that going wherever it will go. The Dieprivier flows on, and I stand in the slanting light of evening, having given myself to this place, to the Cape—however worn this country has become.

Let me bow my head a little longer in thought.
Heaven and earth—and one sandpiper.
Where does it go?