翻译唐纳德.霍尔的四首诗
Kicking the Leaves
Each fall in New Hampshire, on the farm
where my mother grew up, a girl in the country,
my grandfather and grandmother
finished the autumn work, taking the last vegetables in
from the cold fields, canning, storing roots and apples
in the cellar under the kitchen. Then my grandfather
raked leaves against the house
as the final chore of autumn.
One November I drove up from college to see them.
We pulled big rakes, as we did when we hayed in summer,
pulling the leaves against the granite foundations
around the house, on every side of the house,
and then, to keep them in place, we cut spruce boughs
and laid them across the leaves,
green on red, until the house
was tucked up, ready for snow
that would freeze the leaves in tight, like a stiff skirt.
Then we puffed through the shed door,
taking off boots and overcoats, slapping our hands,
and sat in the kitchen, rocking, and drank
black coffee my grandmother made,
three of us sitting together, silent, in gray November.
(1978)
踢树叶
在新罕布什尔的每个秋天，在农场
我母亲，一个乡村少女，在那儿长大
我的外祖父和外祖母
要完成秋天的劳作，从冰冷的地里
收回最后的菜蔬，装罐，把块根和苹果
贮藏进厨房下的地窖。然后外祖父
把树叶耙拢到屋边
算是秋天里最后的杂活。
某个十一月我从学校开车去看望他们。
我们拉着大耙子，象夏天收干草时一样
把树叶拢到屋子周围，
每面屋墙的花岗岩地基边。
然后，为了固定它们，我们砍下云杉枝
放到叶子堆上，
绿叠着红，直到屋子
被包裹紧，等着雪
冻紧树叶，如同一条绷紧的裙子。
之后，我们哈着白气穿过棚屋的门，
脱下长靴和外套，拍拍手
在厨房里坐下，摇着身子，喝
外祖母煮的黑咖啡
三个人坐在一起，安静着，在灰色的十一月。
White Apples
when my father had been dead a week
I woke
with his voice in my ear
I sat up in bed
and held my breath
and stared at the pale closed door
white apples and the taste of stone
if he called again
I would put on my coat and galoshes
白苹果
我父亲已死去一周
我惊醒
耳边是他的声音
我坐起在床上
屏住呼吸
盯着浅白色紧闭的门
白苹果和石头的滋味
如果他再叫我
我会穿上外套和胶套鞋
Names of Horses
All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding
and steerhide over the ash hames, to haul
sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer,
for the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range.
In April you pulled cartloads of manure to spread on the fields,
dark manure of Holsteins, and knobs of your own clustered with oats.
All summer you mowed the grass in meadow and hayfield, the mowing machine
clacketing beside you, while the sun walked high in the morning;
and after noon's heat, you pulled a clawed rake through the same acres,
gathering stacks, and dragged the wagon from stack to stack,
and the built hayrack back, uphill to the chaffy barn,
three loads of hay a day from standing grass in the morning.
Sundays you trotted the two miles to church with the light load
a leather quartertop buggy, and grazed in the sound of hymns.
Generation on generation, your neck rubbed the windowsill
of the stall, smoothing the wood as the sea smooths glass.
When you were old and lame, when your shoulders hurt bending to graze,
one October the man, who fed you and kept you, and harnessed you every morning,
led you through corn stubble to sandy ground above Eagle Pond,
and dug a hole beside you where you stood shuddering in your skin,
and lay the shotgun's muzzle in the boneless hollow behind your ear,
and fired the slug into your brain, and felled you into your grave,
shoveling sand to cover you, setting goldenrod upright above you,
where by next summer a dent in the ground made your monument.
For a hundred and fifty years, in the Pasture of dead horses,
roots of pine trees pushed through the pale curves of your ribs,
yellow blossoms flourished above you in autumn, and in winter
frost heaved your bones in the ground - old toilers, soil makers:
O Roger, Mackerel, Riley, Ned, Nellie, Chester, Lady Ghost.
马的名字
整个冬天你粗野的肩膀顶紧木轭、垫料
蜡树颈轭上的阉牛皮，拖运着
雪橇，装满经春夏而晒干的木材，
供给来年冬季的格兰伍德炉子，及炖煮的灶台。
在四月，你拉着一车车的粪肥施洒田地，
荷兰乳牛的黑粪，和你的丛生着燕麦的粪球。
整个夏天你在牧场和秣草地上割草，割草机
在你身旁噼啪直响，此时早上的太阳正走向高处。
午后炎热，你又拉着钉齿耙在这片相同的阔地上
收草，拖着车子从一个草垛到另一个草垛，
拉回堆好的干草架，走向山丘上的草料仓房，
从早晨还未收割的草地上，一天运送三车的干草。
在礼拜天你拉着四分之一皮革顶的双轮马车，轻装地
小跑到两英里之外的教堂，在声声的赞美诗中吃草。
一代又一代，你的脖子磨蹭着马厩的窗沿，
把那儿的木头磨得光亮，像海洋打磨着玻璃。
当你老了、瘸了，当你的肩膀疼痛屈着身子吃草，
某个十月，那个喂你养你在每个清晨给你上套的人，
带你穿过玉米茬地，走到鹰池上面的沙地，
在你身旁挖一个坑，你站在那儿光着身子颤抖，
他把短枪的枪口对准你耳朵后没有骨头的凹处，
把子弹射入你的脑袋，把你推倒进你的坟墓，
铲起沙子盖上你，在上面放上一枝黄菊，
翌年的夏天，那地上的凹痕就成为你的遗迹。
一百五十年来，在死去的马儿的牧场上
松树的根系穿过你的肋骨浅色的弧线，
秋天里，黄花茂盛地丛生在你上面，在冬日
寒霜掘起你地下的骨头——老苦工，泥土的养料：
噢 罗杰，麦克尔，瑞丽，奈德，内尔，切斯特，幽灵夫人
An old life
Snow fell in the night.
At five-fifteen I woke to a bluish
mounded softness where
the Honda was. Cat fed and coffee made,
I broomed snow off the car
and drove to the Kearsarge Mini-Mart
before Amy opened
to yank my Globe out of the bundle.
Back, I set my cup of coffee
beside Jane, still half-asleep,
murmuring stuporous
thanks in the aquamarine morning.
Then I sat in my blue chair
with blueberry bagels and strong
black coffee reading news,
the obits, the comics, and the sports.
Carrying my cup twenty feet,
I sat myself at the desk
for this day's lifelong
engagement with the one task and desire.
老年生活
夜里下雪了。
五点十五分我醒来，看见
一团浅蓝的柔和，那儿
是本田车。喂过猫，做好咖啡
我扫去车上的雪，
开车到凯尔萨吉小超市，
等埃米开门
从报堆里抽出我的环球时报。
回来，我把一杯咖啡放在
简身旁，她还半睡着，
轻声说着恍惚的
谢谢，在这碧绿色的早晨。
然后，我坐在蓝椅子上
就着蓝莓百吉饼和浓烈的
黑咖啡，读新闻，
讣告、漫画和体育，
端起杯子走二十多步
我在书桌前坐下，
为着和那唯一的任务和热望
今日里定下的毕生约定。
译于2010.5.17~5.18
