FLYING AT NIGHT

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.

夜間飛行

仰頭，是群星。俯瞰，眾星宿。
五十億英里之遙，一個星系死去
像雪花消融於水面。地上，
有位農夫，感應到那遠方的死亡之寒，
啪地扭亮院子裏的燈，把棚屋和穀倉
收回他照料下的秩序。
一整夜，城市，似明滅的新星，
用輝煌的街道牽引如斯的孤燈。

翻譯 © 史春波

A FROZEN STREAM

This snake has gone on,
all muscle and glitter,
into the woods,
a few leaves clinging,
red, yellow, and brown.
Oh, how he sparkled!
The roots of the old trees
gleamed as he passed.

Now there is nothing
to see; an old skin
caught in the bushes,
bleached and flaking,
a few sharp stones
already poking through.

結冰的河

這條蛇曾逶迤向前，
臂力十足，閃閃發亮，
遊入樹林，
幾片葉子粘在身，
紅的，黃的，褐的。
哦，多麼光彩！
老樹的根莖
在他路過時發光。

而現在卻沒什麼
可瞧；褪掉的皮
卡在灌木叢裏，
鮮妍盡失，鱗片剝落，
幾塊尖尖的石頭
已經把他刺穿。

翻譯 © 史春波

IN JANUARY

Only one cell in the frozen hive of night
is lit, or so it seems:
this Vietnamese café, with its oily light,
its odors whose shapes are like flowers.
Laughter and talk, the tick of chopsticks.
Beyond the glass, the wintry city
creaks like an ancient wooden bridge.
A great wind rushes under all of us.
The bigger the window, the more it trembles.

在一月

黑夜的蜂巢冰凍，只有一間
亮著燈，至少在我們看來：
這家越南咖啡館，閃著油嗒嗒的光，
迎面的氣味，形狀華美如花。
有說有笑，筷子輕碰。
越過玻璃窗，嚴冬之城
吱嘎作響如一座古老的木橋。
大風在我們身下奔湧。
窗格越大，顫聲越響。

翻譯 © 史春波

SNOW FENCE

The red fence
takes the cold trail
north; no meat
on its ribs,
but neither has it
much to carry.

雪籬

紅籬笆
拖著寒冷
伸向北方；
它的肋骨上
沒有肉，
也沒有什麽
需要運送。

翻譯 © 史春波

SPRING PLOWING

West of Omaha the freshly plowed fields
steam in the night like lakes.
The smell of the earth floods over the roads.
The field mice are moving their nests
to the higher ground of fence rows,
the old among them crying out to the owls
to take them all. The paths in the grass
are loud with the squeak of their carts.
They keep their lanterns covered.

春耕

奧馬哈以西新鮮犁開的田地
霧氣彌漫似深夜的湖面。
泥土味淹過周邊的路。
田鼠們正把窩搬往
安有圍欄的更高地，
年事已高的向貓頭鷹哭號
叫牠們全被捉去。車輪吱吱
劃破草間暗道的寂靜。
牠們始終把提燈蒙在罩子裏。

翻譯 © 史春波

THE WIDOW LESTER

I was too old to be married,
but nobody told me.
I guess they didn’t care enough.
How it had hurt, though, catching bouquets
all those years!
Then I met Ivan, and kept him,
and never knew love.
How his feet stunk in the bed sheets!
I could have told him to wash,
but I wanted to hold that stink against him.
The day he dropped dead in the field,
I was watching.
I was hanging up sheets in the yard,
and I finished.

寡婦萊斯特

我已經過了結婚的歲數，
但是沒人告訴我。
我想他們不太關心。
那真讓人心寒，不斷地，接住花束
年復一年！
後來我遇見了伊萬，留住了他，
從不知愛情為何物。
床單裏他的腳真臭！
我本可以叫他去洗洗，
但我要拿這臭味當他的把柄。
那天，他在田裏倒斃，
我從遠處看著。
我在院子裏晾床單，
我晾好了最後一件。

翻譯 © 史春波

THERE IS ALWAYS A LITTLE WIND

There is always a little wind
in a country cemetery,
even on days when the air stands
still as a barn in the fields.

You can see the old cedars,
stringy and tough as maiden aunts,
taking the little gusts of wind
in their aprons like sheaves of wheat,

and hear above you the warm
and regular sweep of wheat being cut
and gathered, the wagons creaking,
the young men breathing at their work.

總有一絲風

總有一絲風
在鄉村的墓地，
即便在那些空氣如穀倉般
靜止的日子。

你能看見老邁的雪松
瘦硬如未嫁的姨母，
把一陣陣風絲兜入
圍裙，像捆扎麥束那樣，

並聽見來自上方的
溫暖而規則的聲音：
麥子被沙沙割下，
聚攏，馬車吱嘎作響，
年輕人在勞作時呼吸。

翻譯 © 史春波

A JAR OF BUTTONS

This is a core sample
from the floor of the Sea of Mending,

a cylinder packed with shells
that over many years

sank through fathoms of shirts—
pearl buttons, blue buttons—

and settled together
beneath waves of perseverance,

an ocean upon which
generations of women set forth,

under the sails of gingham curtains,
and, seated side by side

on decks sometimes salted by tears,
made small but important repairs.

一罐鈕扣

這是一段岩心
取自縫紉之洋的海床，

圓柱狀的樣本擠滿貝殼，
它們經年累月

從若干英尋襯衫中沉落——
珍珠扣，藍鈕扣——

壘積一處
匿於不懈的浪濤之下，

女人們曾一代代
從這大海上起航，

以格子窗簾為帆，
然後，並肩坐在

不時被淚水浸鹹的甲板上，
從事不可或缺的細瑣的補綴。

翻譯 © 史春波

A DEATH AT THE OFFICE

The news goes desk to desk
like a memo: Initial
and pass on. Each of us marks
Surprised or Sorry.

The management came early
and buried her nameplate
deep in her desk. They have boxed up
the Midol and Lip-Ice,

the snapshots from home,
wherever it was—nephews
and nieces, a strange, blurred cat
with fiery, flashbulb eyes

as if it grieved. But who grieves here?
We have her ballpoints back,
her bud vase. One of us tears
the scribbles from her calendar.

一位同事的死訊

消息在辦公桌間傳開
如同一份備忘錄：「簽名
並傳給下一個。」我們每個人都標記上
「驚訝」或「惋惜」。

管理人員來得早
把她的名牌深埋進
她的抽屜。他們已經往紙箱裏裝了
美多錠和唇冰，

她從家帶來的快照，
不知在哪兒——幾個侄子
侄女，一只失焦的怪貓
長著火焰般閃光燈泡的眼睛

看上去很難過。但這裏有誰會難過？
我們收回了她的圓珠筆；
她的芽花瓶。我們當中有一個
撕掉了她日曆上的筆跡。

翻譯 © 史春波

譯注：美多錠，Midol，美國常見的一種痛經止痛藥；唇冰，Lip Ice，一種潤唇膏的牌子。

THE FAN IN THE WINDOW

It is September, and a cool breeze
from somewhere ahead is turning the blades;
night, and the slow flash of the fan
the last light between us and the darkness.
Dust has begun to collect on the blades,
haymaker’s dust from distant fields,
dust riding to town on the night-black wings
of the crows, a thin frost of dust
which clings to the earth as it spins.
The fan has brought us through,
its shiny blades like the screw of a ship
that has pushed its way through summer—
cut flowers awash in its wake,
the stagnant Sargasso Sea of July
far behind us. For the moment, we rest,
we lie in the dark hull of the house,
we rock in the troughs off the shore
of October, the engine cooling,
the fan blades so lazily turning, but burning.

窗口的風扇

九月，一陣涼風
從前方吹來，撥動了扇葉；
夜晚，風扇在我們與黑暗之間
慢慢旋動出最後的光。
早有灰塵蓄積在葉片上，
灰塵，來自遠方田間的乾草垛，
騎乘烏鴉的翅膀進城，那翅膀
黑如暗夜，灰塵在扇葉上
結一層薄霜，恰如我們攀援在
旋轉的地球上。
風扇讓我們熬過來，
它發亮的葉片彷彿船尾螺旋槳
吃力地推過夏日——
碎花瓣於尾浪中翻飛，
七月死寂的馬尾藻海
遠在我們身後。現在，我們休息，
躺在這漆黑房子的船體中，
隨波谷輕晃，十月的海岸
在目，引擎在降溫，
扇葉懶洋洋地轉著，但轉著。

翻譯 © 史春波

WALKING ON TIPTOE

Long ago we quit lifting our heels
like the others—horse, dog, and tiger—
though we thrill to their speed
as they flee. Even the mouse
bearing the great weight of a nugget
of dog food is enviably graceful.
There is little spring to our walk,
we are so burdened with responsibility,
all of the disciplinary actions
that have fallen to us, the punishments,
the killings, and all with our feet
bound stiff in the skins of the conquered.
But sometimes, in the early hours,
we can feel what it must have been like
to be one of theme, up on our toes,
stealing past doors where others are sleeping,
and suddenly able to see in the dark.

踮腳走路

很早以前我們就不再抬起腳跟
像其他動物那樣——馬，狗，老虎——
但牠們逃跑的速度
讓我們興奮。即便一只老鼠
在搬運一粒狗糧的偉大重量時
也優雅得令人羨慕。
我們的步伐缺少彈性，
我們被責任壓迫，
被所有落在我們身上
為紀律所約束的行為，懲戒，
殺戮，與此同時，我們的腳
裹在被征服者的皮膚裏變得僵硬。
但有時候，在淩晨，
我們能體會到成為他們之一
是什麼滋味，踮起腳尖，
偷偷經過別人熟睡的門口，
突然被賦予黑暗中的視力。

翻譯 © 史春波

A HAPPY BIRTHDAY

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

生日快樂日

黃昏之時，我坐在敞開的窗前
閱讀，直到光線消失，手中的書
成為黑暗的一部分。
點亮一盞燈很容易，
但我想乘著這一天進入黑夜，
想獨自坐著，平復那已無法認清的書頁
用我蒼白的手的幽靈。

翻譯 © 史春波