I scrub the long floorboards
in the kitchen, repeating
the motions of other women
who have lived in this house.
And when I find a long gray hair
floating in the pail,
I feel my life added to theirs.
We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping.
Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;
they show their light undersides,
turning all at once
like a school of fish.
Suddenly I understand that I am happy.
For months this feeling
has been coming closer, stopping
for short visits, like a timid suitor.
All day the blanket snapped and swelled
on the line, roused by a hot spring wind....
From there it witnessed the first sparrow,
early flies lifting their sticky feet,
and a green haze on the south-sloping hills.
Clouds rose over the mountain....At dusk
I took the blanket in, and we slept,
restless, under its fragrant weight.
from The Boat of Quiet Hours (1986)
二月：心念花朵
此时风蹂躏着田野。
翻起它白色的铺盖，
又按回在上面，掀起又捺回
像一只动物舔着伤口
一切皆白——空气，光
只有一株棕色的乳草荚果
在溪谷中起伏。无边的洪涛中
最小的棕色小舟。
一棵绿色的萌芽
就会让我苏醒
然后，想着高高的飞燕草
摇曳，或是蜜蜂
飞临勃艮第百合的舌瓣
February: Thinking of Flowers by Jane Kenyon
Now wind torments the field,
turning the white surface back
on itself, back and back on itself,
like an animal licking a wound.
Nothing but white--the air, the light;
only one brown milkweed pod
bobbing in the gully, smallest
brown boat on the immense tide.
A single green sprouting thing
would restore me. . . .
Then think of the tall delphinium,
swaying, or the bee when it comes
to the tongue of the burgundy lily.
Yes, long shadows go out
from the bales; and yes, the soul
must part from the body:
what else could it do?
The men sprawl near the baler,
too tired to leave the field.
They talk and smoke,
and the tips of their cigarettes
blaze like small roses
in the night air. (It arrived
and settled among them
before they were aware.)
The moon comes
to count the bales,
and the dispossessed--
Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will
--sings from the dusty stubble.
These things happen. . .the soul's bliss
and suffering are bound together
like the grasses. . .
The last, sweet exhalations
of timothy and vetch
go out with the song of the bird;
the ravaged field
grows wet with dew.
from The Boat of Quiet Hours (1986)
它匆匆地进来，匆匆说
我是压在书里的那朵花，
隔了两百年才又找到……
我是创造者，爱人和守护者
当一个受饿的女孩
坐在桌旁
她将坐在我身旁……
我是囚犯餐盘里的食物……
我是涌向井口的水
注满水桶直到它溢出
我是干旱、野草蔓生的花园里
那耐心的园丁
我是石阶，
门闩，和活动的合叶……
我是因欢喜而紧缩的心……
最长的那根头发，白了
早在其余发丝之前……
我在那里，在赠给寡妇的
水果篮中
我是那独自盛开的麝香玫瑰
无人眷顾，山顶湿地上的蕨草……
我是用爱征服你的
那人，当你要呼唤我的名时
我已与你同在……
Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks
I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .
I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . .
When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .
I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . .
I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills. . . .
I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden. . . .
I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge. . . .
I am the heart contracted by joy. . .
the longest hair, white
before the rest. . . .
I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow. . . .
I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . .
I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name. . . .
Rebuked, she turned and ran
uphill to the barn. Anger, the inner
arsonist, held a match to her brain.
She observed her life: against her will
it survived the unwavering flame.
The barn was empty of animals.
Only a swallow tilted
near the beams, and bats
hung from the rafters
the roof sagged between.
Her breath became steady
where, years past, the farmer cooled
the big tin amphoræ of milk.
The stone trough was still
filled with water: she watched it
and received its calm.
So it is when we retreat in anger:
we think we burn alone
and there is no balm.
Then water enters, though it makes
no sound.
from The Boat of Quiet Hours (1986)
黄昏的池塘
一只苍蝇划伤了水面 但这伤口
很快便平复。群燕唧啾
斜掠过头顶，不时朝着
四散的食物的迹象冲下。
树上的濛濛翠色
变成树叶，那看上去
漂浮在邻居谷仓上的轻烟
却原是盛开的苹果花。
可有时候看上去像灾难的
就是灾难：那一天终将来临，
人们和棺材抗争
只不过擦净了教堂的长椅。
The Pond at Dusk
A fly wounds the water but the wound
soon heals. Swallows tilt and twitter
overhead, dropping now and then toward
the outward-radiating evidence of food.
The green haze on the trees changes
into leaves, and what looks like smoke
floating over the neighbor’s barn
is only apple blossoms.
But sometimes what looks like disaster
is disaster: the day comes at last,
and the men struggle with the casket
just clearing the pews.
from The Boat of Quiet Hours (1986)
让夜晚来临
让向晚时分的光线
透过谷仓的缝隙照进来，
移上谷堆，而太阳正西沉。
让蟋蟀开始聒噪
一个女人拿起她的
针线。让夜晚来临。
让露珠聚在遗落到荒草中的
锄头上。让星星显现
月亮露出她银色的号角。
让狐狸回到它的沙穴。
让风儿平息。让棚屋里
变黑。让夜晚来临。
让它来到沟底的瓶子，燕麦地里的
铲子，肺中的空气
让夜晚来临。
让它来吧，如它所愿，不要
害怕。上帝不会让我们
没有安慰，所以让夜晚来临。
Let Evening Come
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
As late as yesterday ice preoccupied
the pond - dark, half-melted, water-logged.
Then it sank in the night, one piece,
taking winter with it. And afterward
everything seems simple and good.
All afternoon I lifted oak leaves
from the flowerbeds, and greeted
like friends the green-white crowns
of perennials. They have the tender,
unnerving beauty of a baby's head.
How I hated to come in! I've left
the windows open to hear the peepers'
wildly disproportionate cries.
Dinner is over, no one stirs. The dog
sighs, sneezes, and closes his eyes.
Her sickness brought me to Connecticut.
Mornings I walk the dog: that part of life
is intact. Who's painted, who's insulated
or put siding on, who's burned the lawn
with lime—that's the news on Ardmore Street.
The leaves of the neighbor's respectable
rhododendrons curl under in the cold.
He has backed the car
through the white nimbus of its exhaust
and disappeared for the day.
In the hiatus between mayors
the city has left leaves in the gutters,
and passing cars lift them in maelstroms.
We pass the house two doors down, the one
with the wildest lights in the neighborhood,
an establishment without irony.
All summer their putto empties a water jar,
their St. Francis feeds the birds.
Now it's angels, festoons, waist-high
candles, and swans pulling sleighs.
Two hundred miles north I'd let the dog
run among birches and the black shade of pines.
I miss the hills, the woods and stony
streams, where the swish of jacket sleeves
against my sides seems loud, and a crow
caws sleepily at dawn.
By now the streams must run under a skin
of ice, white air-bubbles passing erratically,
like blood cells through a vein. Soon the mail,
forwarded, will begin to reach me here.
Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
They fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline, nose.
We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows keener than these.
Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.
From Let Evening Come (1990)
黄昏里的牡丹
白牡丹沿着门廊盛开
发出明光
而院子里别的地方却越发昏暗。
怒放的花朵大得像
人头！ 它们被自己的繁茂
压的摇晃：我得用
棍和线把它们撑起。
湿润的空气让香气更加浓郁，
月亮绕着谷仓寻找
哪来的这芬芳。
在渐渐深沉的六月之夜
我牵过一枝盛开的花，贴近
倾身探询，如同一个女人
探求心爱之人的脸庞。
Peonies at Dusk
White peonies blooming along the porch
send out light
while the rest of the yard grows dim.
Outrageous flowers as big as human
heads! They're staggered
by their own luxuriance: I had
to prop them up with stakes and twine.
The moist air intensifies their scent,
and the moon moves around the barn
to find out what it's coming from.
In the darkening June evening
I draw a blossom near, and bending close
search it as a woman searches
a loved one's face.
from Constance (1993)
饼干
狗舔净了它的碗
他的奖赏是一块饼干，
我送到他嘴里
像牧师施给圣餐面包。
我受不了他那信任的脸
他请求面包，期待
面包，而我以我的权利
也许会给他一块石头。
Biscuit
The dog has cleaned his bowl
and his reward is a biscuit,
which I put in his mouth
like a priest offering the host.
I can't bear that trusting face!
He asks for bread, expects
bread, and I in my power
might have given him a stone.
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
From Otherwise (1996)
Note1: to the dust at your feet
shake the dust off your feet
From Matthew 10:14. Jesus sends some of his disciples out to preach the "Good News" to the "lost sheep of Israel". Among His many marching orders: "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town" (NIV). That is to say, don't be a masochist and belabor your point (unless, of course, you just like toying with folks). Just go. Wash your hands of the situation, you've done your bit. Move along; God sorts 'em out.
One of these areas is called the New Jersey Pine Barrens. This unique area covers approximately 1.1 million acres, which is nearly one quarter of the state’s total land area. In many locations, pines are the dominant types of tree, but the landscape is by no means barren. The Pine Barrens is home to an estimated eight-hundred and fifty species of plants and three hundred and fifty species of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. http://www.thewildones.org/PineBarrens/PineBarrens.html
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