傍晚
[美]盖尔.马扎尔，一树译
她时常像一名儒家弟子――
缺乏坚定的立场……
每天，静坐家中，
髋部不曾康复，双腿依旧肿胀；
尽管如此她还是以一种顽强的坚定
承载着她的不幸。
12年来不与人来往，
期望过去重现已
没有意义。今天早晨，
她告诉我，发现了一只知更鸟
蹲伏在盛开的白杜鹃花边
潮湿的污土上。
到中午还在那儿――
她拄着四支架拐杖
走出家门来到院子里――
发现它似乎生命垂危。
夜间，她再去看的时候，
那只鸟不见了
而在它蹲伏过的地方，矮树丛下，
留下一枚小小的蛋――
“漂亮的蓝色的知更鸟蛋”――
她小心翼翼地把它捧到屋里。
“你要把它孵化了吗？”
我问――我在想些什么呢？――
她说：“盖尔，我不想要
一只鸟，我只想要一枚蓝色的蛋。”
诗人近照：
诗人简介：盖尔.马扎尔，美国诗人，著有《他们不能从我这里拿起它》、《奇伯的第一任妻子》等五部诗集。在波士顿和剑桥富有盛名，作品集经验与天赋于一身。除了写诗，马扎尔还写小说和评论。
附原作：
Evening
by Gail Mazur
Sometimes she's Confucian--
resolute in privation. . . .
Each day, more immobile,
hip not mending, legs swollen;
still she carries her grief
with a hard steadiness.
Twelve years uncompanioned,
there's no point longing for
what can't return. This morning,
she tells me, she found a robin
hunched in the damp dirt
by the blossoming white azalea.
Still there at noon--
she went out in the yard
with her 4-pronged metal cane--
it appeared to be dying.
Tonight, when she looked again,
the bird had disappeared and
in its place, under the bush,
was a tiny egg--
"Beautiful robin's-egg blue"--
she carried carefully indoors.
"Are you keeping it warm?"
I ask--what am I thinking?--
And she: "Gail, I don't want
a bird, I want a blue egg." |
