月 亮

缺乏韻文，但有那么多隱喻，大多被磨得細薄。一只奶酪的輪子，一只雪盲的眼睛，年輕月亮懷抱著老月亮。你希望克里斯蒂·摩爾①會寫一首關于老月亮的歌。當然，要說它觀察或者跟隨我們越過鄉(xiāng)間，盡管你會發(fā)誓說這樣的事情發(fā)生過，但那并不是真實的。雖然你從不曾看見任何人長毛或者嚎叫，月亮也會挑事。當它足夠明亮的時候，它就在夜里投下我們的影子。天黑之后，我們的影子極少被放出來，它們就充分利用月亮，有時你在回家時，它會引著你走錯路。要是你幸運，那時你會看到白色的野兔在積雪中跳舞，而月亮大張著嘴，仿佛驚奇不已——這話你能只說一次嗎？——仿佛驚奇不已，世界因為冬天，因為跳躍的野兔而發(fā)光。

注：①愛爾蘭首席民歌吉他手（1945-）。

Moon

A paucity of rhymes but so many metaphors，most worn thin. A wheel of cheese，a snow-blind eye，the old moon in the young moon’ s arms. You wish Christy Moore would write a song about that old one. Surely it’ s not true to say it watches or follows us across the countryside，though you’ d swear that happens. And though you’ ve never seen anyone grow fur and howl，the moon does stir things up. When it’ s bright enough，it casts our shadows in the night. They’ re let out after dark so rarely they make the most of it，sometimes leading you the wrong way home. That’ s when，if you’re lucky，you’ ll see the white hares dancing in the snow，the moon with its mouth wide open as if in wonder—can you say that just this once?—as if in wonder，the world luminous with winter，the wild hares leaping.

燈 盞

在房子的所有房間中，燈盞迷戀圖書室。在翻開的書頁上，它照亮無形的城市，埃古①帶著話語的鞭子等待的思想的角落，一個黑腳族②男孩即將在柏樹山上偷竊的獵狼人的馬的側腹。如果沒有圖書室，燈盞就偏愛臥室。它將流明③傾灑在一個女人的頭發(fā)上，在她朝著鏡子彎腰，合上一串珍珠上的扣子時，溫暖她的裸露出的肩頭，而每一顆珍珠都呈彩虹色，被光芒舔舐。一旦關掉燈，它就等待它的時機，穿過早晨和溫暖的下午，等到有人來輕叩開關，表明最初的那句 “要有光”。由于它生活在室內，它懷念點燈人在街上點亮高高的提燈的那些日子，雪花飄落，在圍繞他們的一派漆黑和寒冷之中，燃燒的燈油投下的一汪汪黃色更美。然后，任何出來散步的人都能看見燈盞在高空中亮起，在銀河系中的每一顆行星上，都有一個女人系緊那一串環(huán)繞在她脖子的小月亮；在每一顆星星上，都有人閱讀。

注：①莎士比亞悲劇《奧賽羅》 中的反面人物。②美洲印第安人的一支，多生活在美國蒙大拿州和加拿大艾爾伯塔省。③光流的強度單位。

Lamp

Of all the rooms in the house，the lamp fancies the library. On the pages of the open book，it illuminates invisible cities，the corner of the mind where Iago waits with a whip of words，the flanks of the wolf hunter’ s horse a Blackfoot boy is about to steal in the Cypress Hills. If there’ s no library，the lamp prefers the bedroom.It spills its lumen on a woman’ s hair，warms the bareness of her shoulders as she bends toward a mirror to close the clasp on a string of pearls，each one iridescent，light-licked. Turned off，the lamp bides its time，waits through the mornings and the warm afternoons for someone to flick the switch that manifests the first let there be.Because it lives indoors，it has a nostalgia for the days when lamplighters attended to the tall lanterns in the streets，the snow falling，the yellow pools cast by the burning oil more beautiful for all the dark and cold around them. Then，anyone out walking could see the lamps light up in the sky high above，on every planet in the galaxy a woman fastening a string of tiny moons around her neck; on every star，someone reading.

鏡 子

鏡子是一個硬化成冰、內部流動的池塘。它周圍的邊框停止融化。它厭倦了凝視天空，需要去看別的東西，某種回看著它的東西。為此，它設置了一種空白的表情；它絕不會打斷，或者哆嗦，或者允許它的欲望像銀白色的鰷魚迅疾地游過一張面龐。無論如何，在房子的世界中，它正死于厭倦和后悔。它渴望看到一只豆娘，渴望品嘗雨水，渴望感受睡蓮的苞蕾受到綻放的驅使而變得粗壯時的重量。居住者的仆人，鏡子渴望把一切都納入其中。就像卡珊德拉①，它被授予了準確的無情魅力，然而它必須顯得沒有辨別力，無法從普通生活中分出美與丑。盡管人們對它的注意要多于房間里所有其他的物體，它也無形得怪異。人們一天數次盯著它，注意力不斷加深，留意到下巴上的短硬胡須，上唇的微微顫動，眼睛的偽裝。他們從來就看不見鏡子。

注：①希臘神話中的特洛伊公主，阿波羅的祭司，后因抗拒阿波羅的旨意，致使其預言失靈，不再被人相信。

Mirror

A mirror is a pond that hardened into ice and moved inside. The frame around it stops its melt. Weary of gazing at the sky，it needed something else to look at，something that looked back. For this，it sets a blank expression; it never interrupts or shivers or allows its desires to dart like silver minnows across a face. However，in the world of the house，it is dying of boredom and regret. It longs to see a damselfly，to taste the rain，to feel the weight of water lilies as the buds thicken with the imperative to bloom. Servant to the occupants，the mirror is dying of holding everything inside. Like Cassandra，it’ s been granted the ruthless grace of accuracy，though it must appear undiscerning，unable to separate the beauty from the ugliness in ordinary life. Though more attention is paid to it than any other object in the room，it is strangely invisible. People stare into it several times a day with deepening attention，noting bristles on a chin，a tremor in the upper lip，the eyes’dissemblance. They never see the mirror.