銅樣的安靜 看「亨利摩爾的藝術」 （節選）

（二）
我是永恆
你可以用鑿子試試
我是剎那
因你輕輕撫獨
而超越

（三）
我是一塊銅
你以為是石
我是一聲呼喊
你以為我沉默
其實兩者都對
我是渾圓的秘密
你見到我的
是我見到你的
前生

（四）
有沒有詩人
膽敢站在我的肩頭
唸一首情詩呢
如果他的女友
難為情
掉頭而去
亨利摩爾先生
會責怪我抑或
責怪他自己

（六）
奇怪
怎麼那守衛
不去守衛
讓那女孩
把玫瑰
插在我
胸間
我明白
啦    因為
那朵玫瑰
美麗    因為
那女孩子
美麗    因為
我    美麗
因為那
守衛
用一隻眼
守
衛
「美麗」

（八）
在你面前
我不能拒絕裸露
我是石
在我面前
你不能拒絕透明
你渾忘了
你自己

（十三）
羊
羊分山羊與綿羊
山羊與綿羊
都喜歡
跳
躍
亨利摩爾
來到山上
掏出銅鈴
純粹的銅鈴
沒有經文
沒有紋飾
山羊與綿羊
聆聽
銅樣
安靜

注：聖經中有將綿羊比喻信主的人（義人），山羊比喻為不信主的人（不義的人）。牠們的道路，牠們的歸路，當不一樣。亨利摩爾作品中，有用銅為羊造像，但我分辨不出，那是山羊抑是綿羊。是不是牠們本來，就有相同的地方，而為亨利摩爾所發現呢？

from SERENE AS BRONZE, VIEWING HENRY MOORE

2.
I am eternity
you may try me with a chisel
I am an instant
at your light touch
transcendent

3.
I am a block of bronze
you think is stone
I am a shout
you think is silent
Or I am both
a secret perfectly round
What you see in me
is what I see in you
a prelife

4.
Is there a poet
who dares stand on my shoulder
to read out a love poem
If his girlfriend
feels embarrassed
and turns away,
Mr. Henry Moore
may blame me
or himself

6.
How strange
that guard
who doesn’t guard
lets that girl
place a rose
on my
chest
Oh, I
see, because
the rose
is beautiful
the girl is
I’m beautiful
because
that guard
simply
guards
with one eye
“the beauty”

8.
Before you
I can’t refuse nakedness
I am marble
Before me
you can’t refuse transparency
you’re oblivious
of yourself

13.
Yang
Yang includes goats and sheep
Both goats and sheep
like to leap
Henry Moore
comes up the mountain
pulls out a bronze bell
smooth bronze
no inscription
no pattern
Silent as bronze
the goats listen,
the sheep

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell

Note: In the New Testament Bible, Matthew 25, “sheep” are a metaphor for the merciful welcomed into heaven, while “goats” stand for the unmerciful, condemned at the Last Judgment to hell. The ambiguity of Moore’s bronze, whether sheep or goat, may have been the artist’s intention.

Yang: In Chinese yang can mean either goat or sheep, though more properly goat is shanyang, literally “mountain yang”.

入夜    懷溫鍵騮

一列紅土高原
散成一片金色的沙漠了
是誰的一角淒迷的微笑呢
一挽秀髮輕揚
一塊頭巾    抖落

山    招攬瑟縮的遊星
海    哄絡怔仲的漁火
樹    撐起了夢的羅網
微茫
微茫
在水平線外

月亮，垂垂的
挨著廖廍
悠悠，那永恒者苦戀的
目光，那天地間浑忘中的
期待

TWILIGHT, MISSING WAN KEN-LAU

A sweep of red plateau
spills toward the vast golden desert
In what corner, whose desolate smile?
A coil of elegant hair, riffling lightly
A scarf shaken free

Mountains gather up loose stars
The sea beguiles the trembling fish fires
Trees loft their web of dreams
Past the horizon
faint haze

The moon suspends
so close to barren huts
that longing gaze
so far
between heaven and forgotten earth

this wait

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell

fish fires: At night, some Chinese fishing boats burned small fires in braziers near their bows to attract fish.

魔術師

蠶兒
在桑葉裏
桑葉
在火柴盒裏
火柴盒
在童年
的手掌裏

時間
這魔術師
當著眾天使
面前
把童年
放在

蠶繭裏

MAGICIAN

In the mulberry leaf
the silkworm
In the matchbox
the mulberry leaf
The matchbox
in childhood’s palm

Before all the angels
time the magician
slips childhood
into its cocoon

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell

邂逅

鴿子啄食時你在我身邊
繞過噴泉便站得遠遠
夕陽西下，濺起七色的
水柱，幽幻有如古調
隔著這古城光景，我看你
啟步，步入浮雕，步入
未名的
傳說

ENCOUNTER

As those pigeons bobbed and pecked
you stood beside me
but near the fountain edged apart
Sunset splashed its seven-hued shafts
all over the west, haunting as an old melody
This ancient town between us, I watched you
step into relief, into a legend
for which I have no name

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell

飛蟻臨水

風雨前夕
就多飛蟻
父親說
端盤水來吧
哥哥便拖了木屐
噠噠走進廚房裏

我們看父親
跨上桌椅
解下鉤上的電線
把燈泡低垂
於是母親
熄掉別的
所有的燈
我們圍攏
唯一的光源裏
飛蟻蓬亂紛飛
我們一家子的眼睛
水紋上莫名地閃
莫名地笑

許多年過去
父親像一隻飛蟻
飛進另一盤水裏
而我們離開故居
許久沒聽見
木屐的聲音了

小女兒和兒子問起
是爺爺想出的主意麼
人傷感了
一時便不懂得回答
也叫他們
端盤水來
請嫲嫲安坐廳中
然後，把所有的窗打開
把所有的燈熄滅

不是風雨前夕
自然不見飛蟻蓬飛
但我們倒喜歡
點一盞燈
低低垂近水面
聽嫲嫲搖著蒲扇
述說兒時光景
孩子們的眼睛
也像當年我們的眼睛
奇異地閃
奇異地笑

是許多年前的一個夜麼
是許多年後的一盤水
我們像飛蟻飛來
也會像飛蟻飛去
在燈光的下面
在燈光的上面
水紋裏我們看見
自己的眼睛
一家子快樂的眼睛
和曾經盪漾
又永恆地盪漾

至愛的眼睛

FLYING ANTS DRAWN TO WATER

Flying ants
swarm before rainstorms
when father’d have older brother
fetch a plate of water,
wood clogs dragging
tak-tak through the kitchen

Father climbed chair and table
unhooking the wire
so the bulb swung low
Mother killed
every other light
as we’d crowd
the one bare bulb
they flew toward,
ant after ant,
our eyes flaring
with our baffled grins

Years ago,
like an ant,
father found
his own plate of water
and we left the old place,
no more clacking clogs

My son and small daughter ask
was it grandpa’s trick?
I say nothing
but call for a plate of water
Grandma’s at the center of the room
as I open all the windows,
switch off all the lights

No rainstorm
no flying ants
but we’re glad
to light a lamp
drawn close to water,
hear grandma talk
of childhood, the soft swish
of her palm-leaf fan
The children’s eyes
like ours
oddly flash and narrow

This plate of water,
here or there?
Like flying ants
we come, we go
around the light,
beneath it
rippling in the water
our own gaze,
those eyes
that rippled once

rippling now

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell

發現外殼

生命短促
有話直說
但一隻雞蛋
不只是
一隻雞蛋
它是內在於蛋白
與蛋黃中
一片

新大陸

由等待發現
一隻手
放進混沌
人世間
一桌子文明
與直立

的外殼

問題是
你必先敲破什麼
才能敲破
內在於
發現

那外殼

FINDING A SHELL

Life’s brief
say what you will
but an egg
is not simply
an egg    It holds
white within white
the yoke
a chunk of

new land

discovered by waiting
A hand
stirs chaos
This civilized world
a tabletop
with shells

balanced upright

The problem
is what to break open
before breaking open
the shell
that holds

discovery

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell

亡命表演

打了麻醉針的老虎
大口張開
穿斑衣的女郎
把頭探進去

打了麻醉針的女郎
綁在木輪上轉
矇了眼的飛刀手
一刀一刀擲向前

打了麻醉針的飛刀手
脖子架在刀刃上
獨臂的空中飛人出場
攀住他來回盪鞦韆

打了麻醉針的空中飛人
凌空聽見伙伴哭
驚呼拍掌的觀眾
慌忙掩眼臉

打了麻醉針的觀眾
惱怨看不清
狠心腸的魔術師
把「一剎那」慢動作重現

CIRCUS ACT

The anesthetized tiger,
mouth wide open,
the lady in leopardskin
inserting her head

The anesthetized woman
spinning on a disc,
the blindfolded knifethrower
slinging one blade after another

The anesthetized knifethrower,
neck poised on the knife edge,
the one-armed acrobat perched
on his trapeze, swooping back and forth

The anesthetized acrobat
catching from the heights his comrade’s cry
The audience screaming, clapping,
shutting their faces

The anesthetized audience
grumbling they can’t see
The heartless magician
showing again “that moment”,
its slow motion

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell

火腿向日葵

從早上開始
全城的快餐店裏人們都嘟嚷著
梵高
和他那一盤盤
煎蛋
這是很自然的大家盯著
端放眼前一碟碟
向日葵
都屏息靜待
它們旋轉
如果有那麼一架影印機
（像電視廣告所說）
問題是
如何把它偷取回來
又覆印了掛回去
如果有那麼一雙
異想天開的手
可逕直伸進影像裏
（像一齣經典）
問題是
如何把它
隨手拈來又阻截
爭相叫價
的腳步
不從熒幕
追出……
今天
今天全城的早餐
是火腿向日葵
但該如何取捨
那一盤盤點心
與藝術
如何將色香味凝定
又連同畫框
端回家裏
所以不奇怪我們
最後以傳統的手法
將一塊塊火腿
送進嘴裏
又將時值三億元
一朵朵向日葵
永久收藏
像一個天才
發現另一個天才時的狂喜
與沮喪

SUNFLOWERS WITH HAM

All morning
from each corner of the city
people in cafés
begin to mumble
of van Gogh
and his platters of omelets
It’s natural everyone stares
at the dish set before him
one sunflower
quietly awaiting
rotation
if only in a photocopier
(as seen on TV)
The question is
how to steal a true copy
then hang it back up
If only a pair of
wildly fantasized hands
could reach right into the image
(as in classical drama)
The problem is
how to snatch it
blocking the bids
of the bidders
their footfalls
chasing down the screen
Today the whole city’s breakfast’s
sunflower with ham
But how to choose
between the dish
and the art
How to lock its color, its flavor,
its fragrance, into the frame
to carry home
No surprise how we finally
deliver the ham
to our mouths
as always
bite after bite
then shut away
the sunflower blooming
its three hundred million
like the ecstasy of one genius
dismayed to meet
another

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell

咬著「棺材釘」的老頭

咬著「棺材釘」
孤獨的老頭孤獨地
守著一種
手工業
他將煙紙攤在掌心
他將煙絲搯在煙紙裏
他將手輕輕合上
輕輕合上輕輕地搓輕輕地捲
像捲動在古老歲月裏的
捲筒機
然後，他將煙捲
湊近舌尖
輕輕一舔讓全身
彌滿辛辣的煙味
他滿頭斑白
像一堆煙灰
他熬過長夜的眼睛
像灰燼裏
孤獨的火

咬著「棺材釘」
孤獨的老頭
劃亮一根一根
孤獨的火
他點燃自己
吸啜自己
又孤獨地
搓捲自己

OLD MAN, COFFIN NAIL IN HIS TEETH

Coffin nail in his teeth,
the solitary old man
keeps alive
this small handicraft,
flattening the paper in his palm,
sprinkling the dark threads of tobacco,
then closing, twisting, gently rolling
as if a well-worn machine
One lick of his tonguetip,
one light, and the whole body
fills with fragrant smoke,
his hair a gray heap of ash,
his eyes smoldering through the nights
uncompanioned flame,
embers

Coffin nail in his teeth,
the solitary man
strikes one match after another,
curling into himself,
sipping himself,
setting himself alight

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell

戲水忘川

涉水之先
便已濯足其間了

歌亦如是
詠亦如是
默默旋舞
亦復如是
唇齒輕顫
彼岸的漣漪
便漫越
此岸
無涯涘
的意識

蓮葉田田
戲水忘川

與你
共飲
一種
死
雖生猶死
雖死
猶死

波濤在上
波濤在下
滴水沾唇便是
別一番
人世

輪迴永在
你我相遇
同一的河流
輪迴永劫
你我相邀
繫此
不繫之舟

SPLASHING IN THE RIVER OF OBLIVION

Before wading in
bathe the feet

The songs are like this
the odes
the quiet whirling dances
Lips and teeth trembling
at the ripple of the far shore
flooding this one
Unending
consciousness

The lotus joins leaf to leaf
in the river of oblivion

I drink
with you
a kind of
death,
life a kind of death,
a death
like death

Waves above
waves below
if one drop wets the lip
it must be another
world

We meet in the same river
the same relentless flow

inviting each other
to tie this untied boat

trans. © Diana Shi & George O’Connell