临湖感怀

【美】唐纳德·贾斯蒂斯　　陈子弘 译

城市在我们身后燃烧；湖面闪闪发光。
高大的高音喇叭正宣布开奖；
湖边，另一个则广播游船时间。
童年曾经满是恐惧以及惊喜，
现在却渐渐淡成了悠远的风景——
远处总是传出忧伤的钢琴声，

远处隐约有幽灵般的叮当声
（哦，难以辨认的模糊和声）
或某种远远的号角声在水面回荡，
高亢的失落音符，背离所有的和谐。
恰恰此时，清醒的孩子会梦见世界，
而这就是我们从世界中逃离的世界。

抑或两个世界靠拢合二为一
在风暴与雨甜美暗黑的下午，
旧的立体观景器被拿出来擦拭，
整理一堆旧《国家地理》杂志，或冒雨，
疯狂地冲向当地的电影宫，
也许会听到凯恩那凤头白鹦鹉尖叫。
（这会是1942，那个夏天么？）

到六月，城市好似变得神经质。
但湖泊整个夏天都适合深思，
我们的湖以如画的蓝色调著称，
细想之后，又不全是忧伤。
为何会忧伤？是他们的愿望并不独特——
用装扮成纯技术的爱去
人格化无生命的死物么？

哦，艺术和孩子全都是无辜的！
但风景会渐次变抽象，一如老去的父母；
很快了，战争会让大酒店关门大吉；
而我们，再回来时，必定已是父母身份。
现在松树之间并没有灯笼挂着——
仅仅，像历史一样，北方松树裸露得精光。

而且一段时间后，湖滨会消失
在它流亡难以磨灭诗句中
或在几幅老码头的素描中。
也许雨会在内心的另外一边下着，
然后我们记起，不由自主地记起。
——怀旧与雨的味道会一同来，你懂的。

诗人简介：唐纳德·贾斯蒂斯（Donald Justice，1925年8月12日—2004年8月6日）美国诗人、作家和教师，以其精湛的诗歌技艺和对形式的重视而闻名。他是美国艺术与文学学院院士，1997 年至 2003 年担任美国诗人学院院长。他曾获1980年普利策诗歌奖，并于1961年、1974年和1995 年三次入围国家图书奖。

DONALD JUSTICE

Nostalgia of the Lakefronts

Cities burn behind us; the lake glitters.
A tall loudspeaker is announcing prizes;
Another, by the lake, the times of cruises.
Childhood, once vast with terrors and surprises,
Is fading to a landscape deep with distance—
And always the sad piano in the distance,

Faintly in the distance, a ghostly tinkling
(O indecipherable blurred harmonies)
Or some far horn repeating over water
Its high lost note, cut loose from all harmonies.
At such times, wakeful, a child will dream the world,

And this is the world we run to from the world.
Or the two worlds come together and are one
On dark sweet afternoons of storm and of rain,
And stereopticons brought out and dusted,
Stacks of old Geographics, or, through the rain,
A mad wet dash to the local movie palace
And the shriek, perhaps, of Kane's white cockatoo.
(Would this have been summer, 1942?)

By June the city seems to grow neurotic.
But lakes are good all summer for reflection,
And ours is famed among painters for its blues,
Yet not entirely sad, upon reflection.
Why sad at all? Is their wish not unique—
To anthropomorphize the inanimate
With a love that masquerades as pure technique?

O art and the child are innocent together!
But landscapes grow abstract, like aging parents;
Soon now the war will shutter the grand hotels;
And we, when we come back, must come as parents.
There are no lanterns now strung between pines—
Only, like history, the stark bare northern pines.

And after a time the lakefront disappears
Into the stubborn verses of its exiles
Or a few gifted sketches of old piers.
It rains perhaps on the other side of the heart;
Then we remember, whether we would or no.
—Nostalgia comes with the smell of rain, you know.

                                            from Antaeus