圣露西日

【美】唐纳德·雷维尔　陈子弘 译

我能触及的一切，甚至
水槽上方黑暗中窗上映出的脸，|
凝视外头渐渐暗淡的庭院，
又望向我身后变亮的厨房，
有时会无助地有点摇摇欲坠，
然后又找到支撑。重要的是
试着去留意每一件事情，
然后了解是什么阻止它垮得太凶，
无法挽救。一个孩子可能会担心
庭院在夜幕降临后去了哪里。
而我这里却忧虑
身后厨房的刺眼光芒，
它想让我陷入晚饭后
夜晚最幽深那一端。
但与孩子不同，与那些容易
让人怜惜，让人畏惧的沉默之物不同，
我知道一些事情，可以有个选择。
如果我倒下去，我能选择可以挡一下的。

历史一直在发笑，
摇晃着它与自由之岛之间的
小桥，那些偏远部落
在那里自说自话，陷入狂热，
忘记了那个重要的历史教训。
当下很简单。它像粗糙的吊坠
一样，挂在那里，形状如房子。
你推开门，里面的东西都太小
不会伤害到你，
在理想图纸上徜徉很轻松——
郊区住宅、修道院、
褐石屋。而更轻快的是
站在水槽前考虑你的选项。
当庭院暗去，我是否还来得及
穿过窗户，踉跄看向栅栏边
沉重的房间，也就是那个过去，
那些沉重的房间？还是最好
回头看向前方的暗夜深渊？

想来其实很简单。就像
用花园尽头的石头盆来
收集水，让时间发现它的
精打细算，像其他人
一样自己搞个半推半就的
隐秘救援。但思虑却是
无助者不断思考的假节约。
它像石盆中的薄冰一样融化，
从各个方向消失，侵入
它无助的中心点，此时此刻
它无法扩展，也无法拚除。
在任何地方我都无法自救
除了过去或未来，没有救助，
只能向后或向前倒在院子里
或落入今夜宾客如云的杂乱人群，
阻止我堕落的是我的真实生活。
我立足于认真对待一切。

栅栏边黑暗房子从不收缩。
即便在圣露西日匆忙仪式中
日子也会缩短，仪式却越变越大，
让它疯狂的平面图更为宽广
容纳更多东西，容纳那些我已放弃
希望再见到的人们。在里面
穿梭是不可能的。甜美的是，
在如此黑暗中永不会被陌生人伤害。
面前的夜晚深处充满了
准备彻夜长谈的陌生人，
用新的言辞、用阴影与真实肉体
明亮的联想以及我能用舌头触碰的
女人言辞上的蓝色图案
来排练可能永远不会发生的事情。
在那里当幽灵不可能。而且甜美，
在一生中永不会再次伤害任何人。
故我一生都在两种真实生活之间徘徊。

如果他诚实，任何人都会告诉你
同样的事——在任何时刻，任何
被历史笑声动摇的
危机小桥上，任何人
都足以知道去做出他必须的选择
到底是活在过去，还是活在
未来。除了尝试别无它途
因为这选择一次又一次降临
到我们永远无法完全放弃的
薄冰上。这就是尽管危险
虚幻而轻松的当下生活
如此重要。如果跌倒，今夜我只能
朝一个方向倒下。隔壁房间女人的
影子和肉体和话语不属于
我的生命。面前的夜太快。
我永远不能企及的家，伫立在栅栏边，
黑暗、缓慢，充斥着不会变长的日子。

译注：
1. 圣露西日：圣露西日（St. Lucy’s Day）是一个与基督教相关的纪念日，具体来说是纪念圣露西亚（Saint Lucy，或写作Lucia），一位公元4世纪的基督教殉道者。这个日子定在12月13日。圣露西亚被认为是光明和视力的守护圣人。由于它接近冬至（北半球最短的一天），这个节日被赋予了“光明战胜黑暗”的象征意义。

诗人简介：唐纳德·雷维尔（Donald Revell，1954年-）是美国当代著名诗人、翻译家和评论家，以其深邃的哲理诗风和对语言的精妙运用著称。他出生于纽约布朗克斯，毕业于宾汉姆顿大学和布法罗大学，获得博士学位，现为犹他大学英语系教授。雷维尔的诗歌常探索时间、记忆、自然与信仰的交织，融合个人体验与广阔的文化视野，风格既内省又富有象征性。他的作品多次获奖，从他的第一本诗集《来自废弃城市》就获得了国家诗歌系列奖。最近，他获得了 2004 年莱诺尔·马歇尔奖，并两次获得美国笔会中心诗歌奖。他还获得过格特鲁德·斯坦因奖、两次谢斯塔克奖、两次普斯卡特奖，以及美国国家艺术基金会、英格拉姆-梅里尔基金会和古根海姆基金会的奖学金。作为翻译家，他将法国诗人兰波和纪尧姆·阿波利奈尔的作品引入英语，广受好评。

DONALD REVELL

St. Lucy’s Day

All I can put my hands on, even
my face in the dark window over the sink
staring out to the fading yard and inside
to the brightening kitchen behind my face,
staggers helpless a little sometimes
and then is propped up. What’s important
is to try to notice each thing and then
know what stops it falling too far to save.
A child could worry about where the yard goes
at nightfall. And I’m here worrying
about the kitchen glaring behind me,
wanting me to fall into the deep end
of the part of the night after supper.
But unlike a child and unlike
mute things as easy to pity as to fear,
I know something and have a choice to make.
If I fall, I can choose what stops me.

History is laughing all the time,
shaking the little bridges between itself
and islands of freedom, the remote tribes there
talking themselves into a frenzy, forgetting
the one history lesson that matters.
The present is easy. It hangs there
like a rough pendant in the shape of a house.
You press a door. Everything inside is too small
to hurt you, easy to walk around
in ideal floor plans—tract house, cloister,
brownstone. Even easier to stand
at the sink and to consider your options.
As the yard fades, is it too late for me
to stagger through the window towards the dark house
at the fenceline, which is to say the past,
those uneasy rooms? Or better to fall
backwards into the deep end of the night ahead?

Easy to consider. Like collecting
water in a stone basin at the end
of a garden, letting time discover
its own economy, conduct its own
half measures of rescue invisibly
as everyone else does. But thought is the bad
economy of the helpless who keep thinking.
It melts like thin ice in a stone basin
disappearing from all directions into
its helpless center, the here and now
it cannot enlarge and cannot abandon.
There is no saving myself anywhere
but in the past or future, no rescue
but falling backwards or forwards, into the yard
or into the mixed company of tonight’s guests.
Whatever stops me falling is my real life.
I take everything there seriously.

The dark house at the fenceline never shrinks.
Even as the days shorten into the skittish
rites of St. Lucy’s Day, it gets bigger,
opening its crazy floor plan wider
for more things, for people I'd given up
hoping to see together. Impossible
to walk around inside there. And sweet, never
to be hurt by strangers in so much darkness.
The deep end of the night ahead is full
of strangers ready to talk into
the small hours, rehearsing what may never happen
in new words, brighter associations
of shadow and real flesh and the blue patterns
of a woman’s tongue I could touch with my tongue.
Impossible to be a ghost there. And sweet,
never to hurt anyone twice in one lifetime.
So my lifetime gutters between two real lives.

If he is honest, anyone can tell you
the same thing—at any moment, on any
of the little bridges of crisis
shaken by history’s laughter, anyone
knows enough to make the choice he must make
between trying to live in the past
or the future. And nothing more than trying
because the choice comes again and again
onto the thin ice we never completely
abandon. That’s how important the unreal
easy life of the present remains in spite
of the dangers. If I fall, tonight I fall
but one way. The shadow and flesh and tongue
of a woman in the next room are not
for my life. The night ahead is too fast.
Home, which I shall never reach, stands at the fenceline,
dark, slow, and filling with days that will not get longer.

                                     from Poetry