TOU WAN SPEAKS TO HER HUSBAND, LIU SHENG

I will build you a house
of limited chambers
but it shall last
forever: four rooms
hewn in the side of stone
for you, my
only conqueror.

In the south room all
you will need for the journey
—a chariot, a
dozen horses—
opposite,

a figurine household
posed in servitude
and two bronze jugs, worth more
than a family pays in taxes
for the privilege to stay
alive, a year, together…

but you’re bored.
Straight ahead then, the hall
leading to you, my
constant
emperor. Here
when the stench of your
own diminishing
drives you to air (but
you will find none), here
an incense burner
in the form of the mountain
around you, where hunters pursue
the sacred animal
and the peaks are drenched
in sun.

            For those times
in your niche when darkness
oppresses, I will set you
a lamp. (And a statue
of the palace girl you most
frequently coveted.)

And for your body,
two thousand jade wafers
with gold thread puzzled
to a brilliant envelope,
a suit to keep
the shape of your death—

when you are long light and clouds
over the earth, just as the legends prophesy.

竇綰對夫君劉勝說

我將為你建造一座屋宇
房間有限
但將屹立
永世：四個空間
從石壁中鑿出
為你受用，我的
唯一的征服者。

南耳室配備一切
你出行的需要
——一架車輦，
一隊馬匹——
對面，

一個陶傭
隨時侍奉，
兩只銅壺，比一家人
用於活命和短暫安定
所繳付的稅金
更為昂貴……

然而你不知足。
往前，甬道
通向你，我的
每時每刻的
君王。你
在這裏分解
散發的惡臭
把你驅向空氣（卻無處
可尋），還有
一盞香爐
形如環繞你的
博山，獵人在此

追捕神獸
而群峰在陽光中
沐浴。

想到那漫長的
壁龕中黑暗的
壓迫，我將為你
置一盞燈。（執燈人
是你最為垂涎的
宮女的形象。）

至於你的軀體，
兩千玉片
用金縷編綴
一個奇妙的口袋，
一件衣服
保存你死亡的形狀——

你將成為大地上永恒的
光和雲，如傳說中所預言。

翻譯 © 史春波

TESTIMONIAL

Back when the earth was new
and heaven just a whisper,
back when the names of things
hadn’t had time to stick;

back when the smallest breezes
melted summer into autumn,
when all the poplars quivered
sweetly in rank and file…

the world called, and I answered.
Each glance ignited to a gaze.
I caught my breath and called that life,
swooned between spoonfuls of lemon sorbet.

I was pirouette and flourish,
I was filigree and flame.
How could I count my blessings
when I didn’t know their names?

Back when everything was still to come,
luck leaked out everywhere.
I gave my promise to the world,
and the world followed me here.

證詞

曾經，大地是新的
天堂是一聲耳語，
曾經，事物的名字
還來不及固定；

曾經，細密的風
縫合起夏天和秋天，
白楊樹抖動芬芳
縱橫有序……

世界發出召喚，我答應。
一個眼神點燃一次凝視。
我吸一口氣稱之為生命，
陶醉於每一勺檸檬雪葩的味道。

我踮起腳尖旋轉，我綻放，
我是金鈿和火焰。
我該如何清點我的幸福
當我不確知它們的姓名？

曾經，一切醞釀著發生，
幸運從每一條縫隙泄露。
我向世界許下諾言，
世界追隨我至今。

翻譯 © 史春波

譯注：雪葩（sorbet），一種口感類似於雪糕的西式甜品。

IN THE BULRUSH

Cut a cane that once
grew in the river.
Lean on it. Weigh

a stone in your hands
and put it down again.
Watch it moss over.

Strike the stone
to see if it’s thinking
of water.

蒲草叢中

削一根手杖
從那原本在河裏的生物。
倚靠它。掂量

手中一塊石頭
再把它放下。
目睹它長滿青苔。

擊打石頭
看它是否記得
水。

翻譯 © 史春波

PEARLS

You have broken the path of the dragonfly
who visits my patio at the hour when
the sky has nearly forgotten the sun.
You have come to tell me
how happy we are, but I know
what you would and would not do
to make us happy. For example this necklace
before me: white eyes,
a noose of guileless tears.

珍珠

你打破了這條蜻蜓的路線
它每日如時拜訪我的露臺
在天空遺忘太陽之前。
你來告訴我
我們有多幸福，但我知道
那些你情願或不情願做的事
為了我們的幸福。比如我面前
這串項鏈：白眼珠，
天真的淚的絞索。

翻譯 © 史春波

ARS POETICA

Thirty miles to the only decent restaurant
was nothing, a blink
in the long dull stare of Wyoming.
Halfway there the unknown but terribly
important essayist yelled Stop!
I wanna be in this; and walked
fifteen yards onto the land
before sky bore down and he came running,
crying Jesus—there’s nothing out there!

I once met an Australian novelist
who told me he never learned to cook
because it robbed creative energy.
What he wanted most was
to be mute; he stacked up pages;
he entered each day with an ax.

What I want is this poem to be small,
a ghost town
on the larger map of wills.
Then you can pencil me in as a hawk:
a traveling x-marks-the-spot.

詩藝

開車三十英里去一家體面的餐館
不算什麼，那只是懷俄明州
長久呆滯的盯視眨了一下眼。
半路上那個不知名但極其
重要的作家大喊一聲停！
我要融入這裏；他走出去
十五碼，迅速被天空淹沒
然後跑回來，
叫著上帝啊——這兒什麼都沒有！

我曾遇到一位澳大利亞小說家
說他從未學習烹飪
因為那會損害他的創造力。
他最大的願望
是當一個啞巴；他把紙頁摞放整齊；
拎一把斧頭進入每一天。

而我只想寫一首小詩，
一座鬼城
在一張更大的意念的地圖上。
你可以把我當成一隻鷹，在我飛過的地點
用鉛筆畫一個叉。

翻譯 © 史春波

譯注：原詩題目為拉丁語“Ars Poetica”；

15碼約為13.7米，詩中指距離不遠。

Ö

Shape the lips to an o, say a.
That’s island.

One word of Swedish has changed the whole neighborhood.
When I look up, the yellow house on the corner
is a galleon stranded in flowers. Around it

the wind. Even the high roar of a leaf-mulcher
could be the horn-blast from a ship
as it skirts the misted shoals.

We don’t need much more to keep things going.
Families complete themselves
and refuse to budge from the present,
the present extends its glass forehead to sea
(backyard breezes, scattered cardinals)

and if, one evening, the house on the corner
took off over the marshland,
neither I nor my neighbor
would be amazed. Sometimes

a word is found so right it trembles
at the slightest explanation.
You start out with one thing, end
up with another, and nothing’s
like it used to be, not even the future.

Ö

嘴唇圍成一個O，說「啊」。
這是「島」。

一個瑞典詞讓整個街區變得不同。
每當我抬頭望去，街角那幢黃色的房子
是一艘加利恩帆船擱淺在花的海灘。圍住它的

只有風。碎葉機用力咆哮
像船吹響霧角
繞行在迷離的海岸。

不用額外費力，生活照常運轉。
家庭自我完成
而後安於現狀，
它的額頭是一片伸向大海的玻璃
（後院起風了，紅雀四散）

即使，某一天傍晚，街角那所房子
從沼澤地上起航，
我和我的鄰居
也不會感到驚奇。有時候

一個詞過於完美，它瑟瑟發抖
擔心多餘的解釋。
你從一個地方開始，在另一個地方
結束，一切
變了樣子，未來回不到過去。

翻譯 © 史春波

“TEACH US TO NUMBER OUR DAYS”

In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor
is more elaborate than the last.
The alleys smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs,
each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.

Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky.
A boy plays tic-tac-toe on a moon
crossed by TV antennae, dreams

he has swallowed a blue bean.
It takes root in his gut, sprouts
and twines upward, the vines curling
around the sockets and locking them shut.

And this sky, knotting like a dark tie?
The patroller, disinterested, holds all the beans.

August. The mums nod past, each a prickly heart on a sleeve.

「教我們數算自己的日子」

在我原來居住的街區，殯儀館的葬禮
一次比一次奢華。
巷子裏有一股警察味，手槍撞擊著他們的大腿，
每一個彈腔塞一枚細長的藍子彈。

廉價租屋的陽臺一直摞到天上。
一個男孩對著月亮下井字棋，
棋盤是交叉的電視天線，夢中

他吞下一顆藍豆子。
豆子在肚中紮根，發芽，
螺旋生長，藤須彎彎曲曲
爬上並鎖住他的眼窩。

夜空，一條打了結的黑領帶？
巡警，面無表情，握著所有的豆子。

八月。菊花在路過時點頭，露出帶刺的心。

翻譯 © 史春波

THE LESSON: ADAGIO

To bow           
            is to breathe: open
                                          then
                      fold again, slowly:
                                 deep inside
                      a wounded angel’s
                       wing throbs & you
                                          must find it: 
                                                    probe
                                                    touch
                                                      heal
                              In
                                          &
                        out,
                 like breathing:
                                             (That’s rather fine, my boy!)
Ahem: 

                      Out
                                  then
                             In         
                                  &
 
                                            Open
                                            Open
           
            wing hammering sky          ember to flame
           
                                                Bear down      
                                                Feel the air
                                         beneath your stroke

It’s your baby now            go on
                                                nestle it   
                                                bruise it 

                                                              make it sing

音樂課：柔板

拉動弓弦
                即呼吸：展開
                                        然後
                        收攏，慢慢的：
                                        深處
                    一個受傷的天使
                   顫抖著翅翼 & 你
                                    必須找到它：
                                                摸索
                                                觸碰
                                                治愈
                        向內
                                    &
                向外，
            如同呼吸：
                                           （非常好，孩子！）
啊咳：

                向外
                                然後
                        向內
                                 &

                                            敞開
                                            敞開

                    翅膀猛擊天空        餘燼重燃

                                        俯身
                                    感受空氣
                                    在你弦下

現在它屬於你    繼續
                                        依偎它
                                        挫傷它

                                                    命令它歌唱

翻譯 © 史春波

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HOUSE

But it wasn’t a dream; it was a place! And you
…and you…and you…and you were there!
—Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz

I walk out the kitchen door
trailing extension cords into the open
gaze of the Southwest—

the green surreptitious,
dusty like a trenchcoat.

From the beautiful lawnmower
float curls of evaporated gasoline;
the hinged ax of the butterfly pauses.

Where am I in the stingy
desert broom, where
in the blank soul of the olive?
I hear the sand preparing to flee…

Many still moments,
aligned, repair
the thin split of an afternoon—
its orange fiction, the dim
aggression of my daughter on the terrace drawing
her idea of a home. Somewhere

I learned to walk out of a thought
and not snap back the way
railroad cars telescope into a train.

The sand flies so fast, it leaves no shadow.

房子的另一邊

但那不是做夢，那個地方確實存在！你……
和你……和你……你們都在那裏！
——桃樂絲，《綠野仙蹤》

我從廚房的門走出去
把一根電線拖入空曠的
西南部的凝視——

綠色窸窸窣窣，
像蒙著一層卡其布的灰。

美麗的割草機上
汽油一絲絲蒸發；
蝴蝶停住它靈活的斧翼。

我是否存在於這一簇貧瘠的
沙漠金雀花？還是
橄欖樹空洞的靈魂？
我聽見沙子預備逃跑的聲音……

那麼多寂靜的時刻
排列著，修補
下午的裂口——
橘色的想像，帶著微弱的敵意
女兒在露臺上描畫她心中
家的模樣。不知何時

我學會從一個想法中出走
便不再像一節節火車廂那樣
輕易地伸縮複原。

沙子飛逝，來不及留下影子。

翻譯 © 史春波

AMERICAN SMOOTH

We were dancing—it must have
been a foxtrot or a waltz,
something romantic but
requiring restraint,
rise and fall, precise
execution as we moved
into the next song without
stopping, two chests heaving
above a seven-league
stride—such perfect agony
one learns to smile through,
ecstatic mimicry
being the sine qua non
of American Smooth.
And because I was distracted
by the effort of
keeping my frame
(the leftward lean, head turned
just enough to gaze out
past your ear and always
smiling, smiling),
I didn’t notice
how still you’d become until
we had done it
(for two measures?
four?)—achieved flight,
that swift and serene
magnificence,
before the earth
remembered who we were
and brought us down.

美式流暢舞

我們在跳舞——想必是
一種狐步或華爾茲，
浪漫但
需要克制，
舞步起伏，我們
動作精確
進入下一支曲子
沒有停頓，兩個胸膛呼應著
腳下每一步
如七里格漫長——恰如其分的痛苦
舞者必須微笑堅持，
狂熱的複制
是美式流暢舞的
秘訣。
我集中精神
儘量
不犯規
（重心向左，轉頭
讓目光恰好擦過
你的耳畔並保持
微笑，微笑），
因而沒有察覺
你的身體愈發靜止
直到我們完成
（兩小節？
還是四小節？）——一次完美的飛行，
靈巧而平靜的
莊嚴，
直到大地
想起我們
把我們輕輕接住。

翻譯 © 史春波

譯注：美國的競技性舞蹈除了國際標准舞還有美式風格舞，分為美式流暢舞和美式節奏舞，美式流暢舞包括華爾茲、探戈、狐步等；

里格（league）是歐洲和拉丁美洲一個古老的長度單位，現已不再為官方使用，最初指一個人步行一小時的距離，英語世界通常定義為三英里。歐洲民間傳說有一種七里格鞋，穿上這種鞋的人一步能邁出七個里格，速度飛快。

INSTRUMENTAL

A stick.
A string.
A bow.

The twang
as the arrow
leaves it.

The twang
praising
the imprint

it makes
on the air,
caressing

the breach
no one sees
shivering

struck

器樂

一根棍。
一根弦。
一把弓。

一聲弦響
隨箭
射出。

一聲弦響
讚美
它留給

空氣
的印痕，
摩挲

無人看見的
裂口
戰慄著

被擊傷

翻譯 © 史春波

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN’S RETURN TO VIENNA

Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn,
or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me…
—The Heiligenstadt Testament

Three miles from my adopted city
lies a village where I came to peace.
The world there was a calm place,
even the great Danube no more
than a pale ribbon tossed onto the landscape
by a girl’s careless hand. Into this stillness

I had been ordered to recover.
The hills were gold with late summer;
my rooms were two, plus a small kitchen,
situated upstairs in the back of a cottage
at the end of the Herrengasse.
From my window I could see onto the courtyard
where a linden tree twined skyward—
leafy umbilicus canted toward light,
warped in the very act of yearning—
and I would feed on the sun as if that alone
would dismantle the silence around me.

At first I raged. Then music raged in me,
rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough
to ease the roiling. I would stop
to light a lamp, and whatever I’d missed—
larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd’s
home-toward-evening song—rushed in, and I
would rage again.

I am by nature a conflagration;
I would rather leap
than sit and be looked at.
So when my proud city spread
her gypsy skirts, I reentered,
burning towards her greater, constant light.

Call me rough, ill-tempered, slovenly—I tell you,
every tenderness I have ever known
has been nothing
but thwarted violence, an ache
so permanent and deep, the lightest touch
awakens it… It is impossible

to care enough. I have returned
with a second Symphony
and 15 Piano Variations
which I’ve named Prometheus,
after the rogue Titan, the half-a-god
who knew the worst sin is to take
what cannot be given back.

I smile and bow, and the world is loud.
And though I dare not lean in to shout
Can’t you see that I’m deaf?—
I also cannot stop listening.

Note: On doctor’s orders, Beethoven spends the summer of 1802 in the village of Heiligenstadt. That autumn, as he prepares to return for Vienna’s musical season, he writes a let-in which he despairs over his hearing loss, confesses his aspirations and fears, and puts his affairs in order.

路德維希·范·貝多芬重返維也納

哦，你們這些認為並說我惡毒、頑固、
不近人情的人，你們極大地誤解了我……
——《聖城遺書》

我寄居的城市三英里外
有一座村莊能帶給我安寧。
那裏的世界風平浪靜，
偉大的多瑙河不過是
大地上一根白絲帶
被粗心的小女孩丟棄。在這靜止的中心

他們吩咐我康復。
晚夏把山坡染得金黃；
我的屋子分兩間，加一個小廚房，
位於一幢村舍二樓的後身，
「紳士街」的盡頭。
從窗口我能看見院子裏
一棵菩提樹盤結著指向天空——
一根茁壯的臍帶斜著伸向光，
扭曲正是因為渴望——
而我以太陽為食彷彿這唯一的營養
能瓦解我周圍的寂靜。

起初我怒火中燒。音樂在我體內施暴，
它迅速高漲而我未及寫下
以便平復這激動。我停下來
點一盞燈，我錯過的事物——
雲雀歸巢，教堂的晚鐘，牧羊人
回家路上的歌聲——洶湧襲來，我
再一次盛怒。

我天生是一場大火；
我寧可跳躍
也不願坐著被觀看。
所以當我驕傲的都會揚起
她吉普賽的裙擺，我回來了，
燒向她更為明麗、永恒的燈火。

說我粗魯，暴躁，邋遢——告訴你吧，
我所了解的溫柔
什麼都不是
除了挫敗的暴力，一種耐久
而深刻的疼痛，輕輕一碰
就蘇醒……不存在

徹底的關愛。我回來了
帶著第二首交響曲
和十五首鋼琴變奏
我為之取名《普羅米修斯》
以紀念那位叛逆的提坦，一個半神
明白最嚴重的罪莫過於拿走
不能歸還的東西。

我微笑，鞠躬，世界真吵。
我不敢把身子傾進去大叫
「你們看不見我聾嗎？」——
但我無法停止傾聽。

翻譯 © 史春波

原注：1802年夏天，貝多芬接受醫生建議到維也納郊區的村莊海利根施塔特（Heiligenstadt，意為「聖城」）休養，那年秋天，他要返回維也納准備下一個樂季時，給他的兄弟卡爾和約翰寫了一封信，後世稱為《聖城遺書》（The Heiligenstadt Testament），信中訴說了耳疾帶給他的痛苦，坦言他一生的抱負和恐懼，並為身後事做了安排。

OLD FOLKS’ HOME, JERUSALEM

for Harry Timar

Evening, the bees fled, the honeysuckle
in its golden dotage, all the sickrooms ajar.
Law of the Innocents: What doesn’t end, sloshes over…
even here, where destiny girds the cucumber.

So you wrote a few poems. The horned
thumbnail hooked into an ear doesn’t care.
The gray underwear wadded over a belt says So what.

The night air is minimalist,
a needlepoint with raw moon as signature.
In this desert the question’s not
Can you see? but How far off?
Valley settlements put on their lights
like armor; there’s finch chit and my sandal’s
inconsequential crunch.

Everyone waiting here was once in love.

安老院，在耶路撒冷

為哈里·提瑪而作

黃昏，蜜蜂逃逸，忍冬花
垂老的金黃，病房之門微開。
犧牲的法則：一切未終結的，潑濺出來……
即便在這裏，命運束緊了黃瓜。

於是你寫下幾首詩。帶有角質的
大拇指攏住漫不經心的耳朵。
從腰間翻捲出來的灰色底褲在說「無所謂」。

夜晚的空氣是極簡主義者，
用繡針刺一輪天然的月亮作簽名。
在這片沙漠之地，請不要問
「看得見嗎？」而要問「還有多遠？」
山穀裏的定居點亮起燈
像披上一身鎧甲；燕雀啾唧，我的拖鞋
踩出不規則的碎裂聲。

每一個靜候在此的人都曾經相愛。

翻譯 © 史春波