Passage

by Denise Levertov

The spirit that walked upon the face of the waters
Walks the meadow of long grass:
Green shines to silver where the spirit passes.

Wind from the compass points, sun at meridian,
These are forms the spirit enters,
breath, ruach, light that is witness and by which we witness.

The grasses numberless, bowing and rising, silently
Cry hosanna as the spirit
moves them and moves burnishing

over and again upon mountain pastures
a day of spring, a needle’s eye
space and time are passing through like a swathe of silk.

穿越

萊維爾托芙 / 阿九譯

那曾在水面上運行的靈
正走過沒膝的草場：
那靈所到之處，綠草就發(fā)出銀光。

那自四面到臨的風，天頂的太陽，
是這靈所進入的形體，
氣息。圣靈。光，它的見證亦使我們見證。

無以計數的草，綿延拜倒起身，
默念著和散那，當這靈
在閃亮的運行中將它們觸動

一次，又一次，在山坡的草場，
在一個春日，一個針眼里，
時間和空間像一根絲帶穿越。

Words

Sylvia Plath

Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses.

The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock

That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road——
Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.

詞語

普拉斯 / 阿九譯

斧頭
在它的劈砍中樹木鳴響，
帶著回聲！
回聲自中心散開，
像一群馬。

樹液
涌出如同淚水，如同
水掙扎著
重建它的鏡面，
在石頭上，

在下落并翻滾的石頭上，
一顆白色的頭顱，
被瘋長的綠色吞噬。
多少年后，我
在路上遇到它們——

枯燥而無主的詞語，
永不疲倦奶?恪?
而
恒星自池水的底部
主宰著一生。

Child

Sylvia Plath

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose names you meditate ---
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little
Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical
Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

孩子

普拉斯 / 阿九譯

你清澈的眼睛極其美好。
我想在其中填滿顏色和鴨子，
新生者的大觀園，
你想著它們的名字——
四月的雪花蓮，印第安長笛，
小小的
沒有皺紋的莖稈，
有著華麗而典雅的
倒影的水池，
而不似這紛亂的
手的緊握，這黑暗
而沒有星星的屋頂。

Walks

W. H. Auden

I choose the road from here to there,
When I""ve a scandalous tale to bear,
Tools to return or books to lend
To someone at the other road.
Return afterwards, although
I meet my footsteps toe to toe,
The road looks altogether new
Now that is done I meant to do.
But I avoid it when I take
A walker""s walk for walking sake;
The repetition it involves
Raise a doubt it never solves.
What good or evil angel bid
Me stop exactly when I did?
What would have happened had I gone
A kilometer further on?
No, When a fidget in the soul
Or cumulus clouds invite a stroll
The route I pick goes roundabout
To finish where it started out.
It gets me home, this curving track,
Without my having to turn back,
Nor does it leave it up to me
To say how long my walk shall be,
Yet satisfies a moral need
By turning behavior into deed,
 For I have boxed the compass when
I enter my front door again.
The heart, afraid to leave her shell.
Demands a hundred yards as well
Between my personal abode
And either sort of public road,
Making, when it is added too
The straight a T, the round a Q.
Allowing me in rain or shine
To call both walks entirely mine.
A lane no traveler would use,
Where prints that do not fit my shoes
have looked for me and, like enough,
were made by someone whom I love.

1958

散步

奧登 / 阿九譯

我選擇一條路，到處走動，
當我有個謠言要去散布，
有幾件工具要還，或者幾本書要借給
有個另一條路上的人。

然后我折返回來，盡管
我撞見自己的足跡，
那條路卻依然是新的。
我所想要做的，現(xiàn)在已經做好，
但我避開了它，當我
為了散步而像散步者一樣行走的時候；
其中所包括的重復
惹出了一個無法自己解開的疑竇。

到底是哪一個天使或魔鬼令我
恰好在那一刻停下腳步？
假如我繼續(xù)向前走一公里
又會發(fā)生什么？
不，當心中的一個躁動
或者積雨云約我出去散步，
我所選擇的路線總是曲折迂回
并止于出發(fā)的起點。

它將我?guī)Щ丶?，這彎曲的足跡
既不是我非返回不可，
也不是隨我的便
來決定我散步的長短，
卻通過將行為轉化為契約
而滿足了某種道德要求，
因為我的指南針已裝入盒子，
當我重新踏入自家的前門。

這顆生怕離開自己蝸殼的心
也要求有一百碼的距離
擺在我私人的居所
與隨便一條公共道路之間，
從而在加上它之后，能使
直線變?yōu)槎∽?，使圓變成Q，
讓我無論置身于雨中還是陽光之下，
都能說這兩條路全然屬于我。

一條無人會走的小巷，
那里，所有不合我的鞋底的腳印
都尋找過我，并且每每是
由我心愛的人留下。

Of Mere Being

Wallace Stevens

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor.

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird""s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

存在而已

華萊士·史蒂文斯 / 阿九譯

心靈末端的那棵棕櫚
在意想不到之處，升起
在青銅的布景中。

一只金色羽毛的鳥
在棕櫚枝間唱一首異族的歌，
沒有人的意義，也沒有人的情感。

你于是明白，并不是理性
使人愉悅或者不快。
鳥兒輕歌，燦爛其羽。

棕櫚長在空間的邊線上。
風在枝間緩緩移動。
鳥兒火一樣的羽毛款款飄落。

The Remains

Mark Strand

I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.

What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.

My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

遺體

斯特蘭德 / 阿九譯（2005）

我從自己身上清空他人的名字。我清空口袋。
我清空鞋子并將他們丟在路邊。
晚上，我反轉時鐘；
我打開家庭相冊，看兒時的自己。

但這又有何益？時光已經做了工。
我念著自己的名字。我說再見。
詞語相繼隨風飄逝。
我愛我的妻子，卻要送她遠去。

我的雙親從座上起身，
進入乳白的行云之居。我怎能唱得出來？
時間告訴我我是什么。我變化但還是依舊。
我從自己身上清空生命，而生命自存。

Morning, Noon and Night

Mark Strand

I

And the morning green, and the build-up of weather, and my brows
Have not been brushed, and never will be, by the breezes of divinity.
That much is clear, at least to me, but yesterday I noticed
Something floating in and out of clouds, something like a bird,
But also like a man, black-suited, with his arms outspread.
And I thought this could be a sign that I""ve been wrong. Then I woke,
And on my bed the shadow of the future fell, and on the liquid ruins
Of the sea outside, and on the shells of buildings at the water""s edge.
A rapid overcast blew in, bending trees and flattening fields. I stayed in bed,
Hoping it would pass. What might have been still waited for its chance.

II

Whatever the starcharts told us to watch for or the maps
Said we would find, nothing prepared us for what we discovered.
We toiled in the shadowless depths of noon,
While an alien wind slept in the branches, and dead leaves
Turned to dust in the streets. Cities of light, long summers
Of leisure were not to be ours; for to come as we had, long after
It mattered, to live among the tombs, as great as they are,
Was to be no nearer the end, no farther from where we began.

III

These nights of pinks and purples vanishing, of freakish heat
Stroking our skin until we fall asleep and stray to places
We hoped would always be beyond our reach - the deeps
Where nothing flourishes, where everything that happens seems
To be for keeps. We sweat, and plead to be released
Into the coming day on time, and panic at the thought
Of never getting there and being forced to drift forgotten
On a midnight sea where every thousand years a ship is sighted, or a swan,
Or a drowned swimmer whose imagination has outlived his fate, and who swims
To prove, to no one in particular, how false his life had been.

(1997)

早晨，中午和晚上

馬可·斯特蘭德 / 阿九譯

1

那早晨的青冥，還有漸漸加重的水汽，而我的眉頭
還沒有，也從來不會，被天國的清風梳理。
至少對我而言，這一切都很明顯，但昨天我注意到
一種在云霧里出沒的東西，象一只鳥，
但也象一個人，身著黑衣，展開雙臂。
而我以為這也許只是我出錯的征兆。我于是醒來，
未來的陰影落在我的床上，在外面大海
那流動的廢墟上，還有水邊建筑的廓影上。
一陣疾風吹進，它彎曲了樹干，夷平了田野。而我仍在床上，
盼著它走遠?；蛟S早已發(fā)生的事情還在等待時機。

2

星圖上告訴我們要留意的，或者地圖上說
我們會找到的，都沒有讓我們?yōu)樽约旱陌l(fā)現(xiàn)做好準備。
當我們在正午連影子都看不見的深處辛勞，
一陣異己的風卻在枝間歇息，幾張枯葉
已在街面化為塵土。光華的城市，悠閑的長夏
我們消受不起；因為象我們曾經的那樣到來，遠過了
要緊的時候，在墳墓間生活，象它們一樣偉大，
就是不比終點更近，也不比我們開始之處更遠。

3

這些夜晚，霓虹正在消逝，古怪的熱氣
劃過皮膚直到我們入睡，并且漫游到
我們想來一直遙不可及的地方－－那些什么
也不能生長的深處，那些所有事物看來
都只配封存的場所。我們汗出如漿，懇求按時被釋放
進下一個日子，而且一想起來就深恐
到不了那里，因為被遺忘，只能漂泊在
午夜的海上，那里一千年才能看見一條船，或一只天鵝
抑或一個溺水的泳者，他的想象比他的命數活得更久，而他漂游
只是要向隨便什么人證明一下，他的一生多么烏有。

(1997)

Reading in Place

Mark Strand

Imagine a poem that starts with a couple
Looking into a valley, seeing their house, the lawn
Out back with its wooden chairs, its shady patches of green,
Its wooden fence, and beyond the fence the rippled silver sheen
Of the local pond, its far side a tangle of sumac, crimson
In the fading light. Now imagine somebody reading the poem
And thinking, “I never guessed it would be like this,”
Then slipping it into the back of a book while the oblivious
Couple, feeling nothing is lost, not even the white
Streak of a flicker’s tail that catches their eye, nor the slight
Toss of leaves in the wind, shift their gaze to the wooded dome
Of a nearby hill where the violet spread of dusk begins,
But the reader, out for a stroll in the autumn night, with all
The imprisoned sounds of nature dying around him, forges
Not only the poem, but where he is, and thinks instead
Of a bleak Venetian mirror that hangs in a hall
By a curving stair, and how the stars in the sky’s black glass
Sink down and the sea heaves them ashore like foam.
So much is adrift in the ever-opening rooms of elsewhere,
He cannot remember whose house it was, or when he was there.
Now imagine he sits years later under a lamp
And pulls a book from the shelf; the poem drops
To his lap. The couple are crossing a field
On their way home, still feeling that nothing is lost,
That they will continue to live harm-free, sealed
In the twilight’s amber weather. But how will the reader know,
Especially now that he puts the poem, without looking,
Back in the book, the book where a poet stares at the sky
And says to a blank page, “Where, where in Heaven am I?”

現(xiàn)場閱讀

馬可·斯特蘭德 / 阿九譯

設想有一首詩，開頭處有對夫婦在
眺望山谷，看見他們的房子，后院草坪
還有幾把木椅，幾處墨綠的樹蔭，
木制的柵欄，以及柵欄之外紋銀般的水波
自不遠的池溏散開，對岸有一叢漆樹，暗紅地
長在漸逝的天光里?，F(xiàn)在，設想有人在讀這首詩
并且在想，“我從沒想過會有這樣的事，”
然后就把它夾到一本書的末尾，而那對健忘的
夫婦卻并未感到失去什么，甚至連一只飛蟲的尾巴
扇出的白暈也都還在眼中，風中輕輕
搖曳的葉子也在，于是，他們將目光移向附近
蔥郁的山頭，那里，黃昏的紫煙開始上升，
而那個在秋夜里出來散心的讀者，以及
囚禁于天地間的將逝的萬籟，不僅虛構了
這首詩，而且杜撰了他的地點，代之以遐想中的
一面黯淡的威尼斯銅鏡，掛在旋轉樓梯旁邊的
大廳墻上，還有黛色的天空上的群星
落下，又泡沫一樣讓海浪打上岸邊。
在別處，永遠敞開的房間里，一切都在流逝，
他已記不清這是誰的屋子，或者他何時在此住過。
現(xiàn)在，設想幾年之后，他端坐燈下，
從書架上抽出一本書；那首詩恰好落在
他的腿上。那對夫婦正在往回走，
穿過一片田野，對一切還是渾然不覺，
而他們仍將自在地生活，隔絕于
熹微的琥珀色天空下。但那個讀者如何知道，
（尤其當他沒看一眼，就將那首詩放回
夾在書里，）有個詩人正在仰望天空，
并對某個空頁說：“天國之中，我在何處？”

Country Fair

Charles Simic (1991)

If you didn’t see the six-legged dog,
It doesn’t matter.
We did, and he mostly lay in the corner.
As for the extra legs,

One got used to them quickly
And thought of other things.
Like, what a cold, dark night
To be out at the fair.

Then the keeper threw a stick
And the dog went after it
On four legs, the other two flapping behind,
Which made one girl shriek with laughter.

She was drunk and so was the man
Who kept kissing her neck.
The dog got the stick and looked back at us.
And that was the whole show.

鄉(xiāng)村集市

西密克 / 阿九 譯

如果你們沒見過六條腿的狗，
那沒有關系。
我們見過，它平時就躺在那個角落。
至于它多出來的兩條腿，

人們很快也就習以為常，
轉而去想別的事情。
比方說吧，在這又冷又黑的夜里
要上一個集市。

這時主人扔出一根棍子什么的東西，
那狗就拔出四條腿
追過去，把另外兩條腿拖在后面，
把一個女孩子樂得嗷嗷直叫。

她喝多了，那個摟著她的脖子
親個沒完的男人也是。
而那條狗叼了棍子，回頭看著我們。
這才是今天的主角亮相。

1991

Sanskrit by First Snowfall

by Brooks Haxton

Under the dust a flake of consciousness,
a word, a condensation frozen on the breath,
is falling fallen windblown whirling:
Krishna on the white flake of the lotus
in the arms of Lakshmi, hands divine
inside each other""s shirt. And all around them
wheels of heaven crash into the silent
windows of Bird Library past midnight,
Bird of the Dead Tongues, mine, my logy
snowbird Ba in snow. I should be home.
My daughters my twin girls say Ba for bird
for book for bottle -- Ba: in Egypt,
bird with a human head, the soul.
They wake, and wake their mother. Ba!
They point into the dark. Ba, Ba! they say,
and back to nursing weary in her arms.

初雪梵音

布魯克斯·哈克斯頓 / 阿九譯

塵埃之下，一枚識的雪花，
一個詞語，一滴冰結的生息之露
在飄零，在風中鼓舞，漫卷墜落：
那是奎施那在蓮花的白色羽瓣上，
在樂斯米的懷中，圣潔的手
撫慰在彼此的衣下。他們的身邊，
天上的車輦在午夜之后摔入
鳥類圖書館靜謐的窗口，
那湮滅的語言之鳥，是我的，我愚鈍的
雪鳥，我的巴，在雪中。我應該是在家里。
我的孿生小女把小鳥說成巴，
把書和瓶子都說成巴——巴：在埃及，
那是人首之鳥，是魂。
她們醒來，并叫醒母親。巴！
她們對著黑暗。巴，巴！她們說著說著
又回到她的臂彎，在磕睡中接受哺乳。

Dance with My Father

Luther Vandross

Back when I was a child, before life removed all the innocence,
My father would lift me high and dance with my mother and me and then
Spin me around ""til I fell asleep.
Then up the stairs he would carry me
And I knew for sure I was loved.
If I could get another chance, another walk, another dance with him,
I""d play a song that would never, ever end.
How I""d love, love, love
To dance with my father again.
When I and my mother would disagree
To get my way, I would run from her to him.
He""d make me laugh just to comfort me,
Then finally make me do just what my mama said.
Later that night when I was asleep,
He left a dollar under my sheet,
Never dreamed that he would be gone from me.
If I could steal one final glance, one final step, one final dance with him,
I""d play a song that would never, ever end,
""Cause I""d love, love, love
To dance with my father again.
Sometimes I""d listen outside her door,
And I""d hear how my mother cried for him.
I pray for her even more than me.
I pray for her even more than me.
I know I""m praying for much too much,
But could you send back the only man she loved.
I know you don""t do it usually
But dear Lord she""s dying.
To dance with my father again,
Every night I fall asleep and this is all I ever dream.

和爸爸跳舞

路德·范德羅斯 / 阿九譯

小時候，生活還沒有帶走所有的童真，
爸爸常把我高高舉起，跟媽媽和我跳舞，然后
抱著我旋轉直到我睡著。
然后他抱我上樓，
我敢肯定，他是愛我的。
如果再有一次機會，和他一起走路，一起跳舞，
我一定要唱一首永遠永遠不休止的歌。
我會多么多么多么歡喜
能和爸爸再跳一次舞。
每當媽媽不聽我的話
不答應我的要求，我就從她那里跑開去找他。
他總能讓我笑起來，給我安慰，
然后乖乖地照媽媽說的去做。
那一天深夜，我睡得很香，
他在我的床單下塞了一塊錢，
我做夢也沒想到他會從此離開我。
假如我能看他最后一眼，他最后的腳步，和他跳最后一次舞，
我一定要唱一首永遠永遠不休止的歌，
因為我多么多么多么歡喜
能和爸爸再跳一次舞。
有時我會在她的房門外偷聽，
我知道她為他哭得多么傷心。
我為她祈禱超過為我自己。
我為她祈禱超過為我自己。
我知道我祈求的實在太多，
但你能不能把她愛的唯一的男人送回。
我知道你一般不這樣做
可是親愛的主啊，她快要死了。
和爸爸再跳一次舞：
每天晚上我都睡著，而這就是我所有的夢。