“你父亲死了”“这让我悲哀”他说。“你母亲死了”那孩子说。“现在对我的一切怜爱都结束了”他说。“你的兄弟死了，”乐应给商说。“唯一的女儿是心的指针”苏伯尼说。“那叫你爸爸的你的儿子死了”乐应给商说。他说“诚然，这是使得一个人落地的一次跌落”
　　
　　——引自爱尔兰故事《苏伯尼的疯狂》
　　
　　一
　　
　　我的冬季的孩子，当他出生时
　　新跌倒的战士动僵在
　　亚洲的陡峭的峡谷中，玷污了雪；
　　而我被爱
　　
　　撕裂，我不能平息的爱
　　被恐惧撕裂，它使我痉挛的头脑
　　在冷战面前沉寂，我输了，
　　在我的意志中找不到我的安息
　　
　　这些日子里我们能让
　　你的头脑像一片新雪后的风景
　　寒冷的佃农在那里找到在下面
　　他的土地在沉睡
　　
　　在它们平滑的遮盖之下，雪白得
　　像罩单用来温暖的那张
　　分娩和痛苦后休息的床
　　无暇如白纸，展开等我去书写
　　
　　和思考：这里展开的是我的土地
　　没有过痛楚的伤痕，这行鼬鼠的
　　瘦小脚印，这布陷阱人的粗大的靴子印，
　　而我已计划好
　　
　　我的时机来控制
　　那发狂的夏季的暴虐，或者
　　加强这里的秋收高潮
　　在又下雪之前。
　　
　　二
　　
　　四月底，你三岁；今天
　　我们为你在后院挖个园子
　　好限制你的游戏造成的毁坏
　　晚上有陌生的狗和打洞的鼬鼠
　　四根细板条守卫着
　　举起它们的细铁丝
　　
　　因此你是第一个把它们踏倒的人
　　当土堆被推近时
　　你拿来你的浇花桶要淹没
　　土地和我们。但是这些混合的种子
　　在它们的固定的行列里用薄土埋上
　　孩子，我们已尽我们的力量
　　
　　应当要有人锄草和分散
　　秧苗，当阴影横卧在它们的床上
　　每小时为它们洒水
　　你应当每天看看它们
　　因为当它们盛开时
　　我将离开了。

　　For Cynthia
　　When Suibhe would not return to fine garments and good food, to his houses and his people, Loingseachan told him, "Your father is dead." "I'm sorry to hear it," he said. "Your mother is dead," said the lad. "All pity for me has gone out of the world." "Your sister, too, is dead." "The mild sun rests on every ditch," he said; "a sister loves even though not loved." "Suibhne, your daughter is dead." "And an only daughter is the needle of the heart." "And Suibhne, your little boy, who used to call you 'Daddy' he is dead." "Aye," said Suibhne, "that's the drop that brings a man to the ground."
　　 He fell out of the yew tree; Loingseachan closed his arms around him and placed him in manacles.
　　
　　—after The Middle-Irish Romance
　　 The Madness of Suibhne
　　
　　
　　1
　　
　　Child of my winter, born
　　When the new fallen soldiers froze
　　In Asia's steep ravines and fouled the snows,
　　When I was torn
　　
　　By love I could not still,
　　By fear that silenced my cramped mind
　　To that cold war where, lost, I could not find
　　My peace in my will,
　　
　　All those days we could keep
　　Your mind a landscape of new snow
　　Where the chilled tenant-farmer finds, below,
　　His fields asleep
　　
　　In their smooth covering, white
　　As quilts to warm the resting bed
　　Of birth or pain, spotless as paper spread
　　For me to write,
　　
　　And thinks: Here lies my land
　　Unmarked by agony, the lean foot
　　Of the weasel tracking, the thick trapper's boot;
　　And I have planned
　　
　　My chances to restrain
　　The torments of demented summer or
　　Increase the deepening harvest here before
　　It snows again.
　　
　　
　　2
　　
　　 Late April and you are three; today
　　 We dug your garden in the yard.
　　 To curb the damage of your play,
　　Strange dogs at night and the moles tunneling,
　　 Four slender sticks of lath stand guard
　　 Uplifting their thin string.
　　
　　 So you were the first to tramp it down.
　　 And after the earth was sifted close
　　 You brought your watering can to drown
　　All earth and us. But these mixed seeds are pressed
　　 With light loam in their steadfast rows.
　　 Child, we've done our best.
　　
　　 Someone will have to weed and spread
　　 The young sprouts. Sprinkle them in the hour
　　 When shadow falls across their bed.
　　You should try to look at them every day
　　 Because when they come to full flower
　　 I will be away.
　　
　　3
　　
　　The child between them on the street
　　Comes to a puddle, lifts his feet
　　 And hangs on their hands. They start
　　At the Jive weight and lurch together,
　　Recoil to swing him through the weather,
　　 Stiffen and pull apart.
　　
　　We read of cold war soldiers that
　　Never gained ground, gave none, but sat
　　 Tight in their chill trenches.
　　Pain seeps up from some cavity
　　Through the ranked teeth in sympathy;
　　 The whole jaw grinds and clenches
　　
　　Till something somewhere has to give.
　　It's better the poor soldiers live
　　 In someone else's hands
　　Than drop where helpless powers fall
　　On crops and barns, on towns where all
　　 Will burn. And no man stands.
　　
　　For good, they sever and divide
　　Their won and lost land. On each side
　　 Prisoners are returned
　　Excepting a few unknown names.
　　The peasant plods back and reclaims
　　 His fields that strangers burned
　　
　　And nobody seems very pleased.
　　It's best. Still, what must not be seized
　　 Clenches the empty fist.
　　I tugged your hand, once, when I hated
　　Things less: a mere game dislocated
　　 The radius of your wrist.
　　
　　Love's wishbone, child, although I've gone
　　As men must and let you be drawn
　　 Off to appease another,
　　It may help that a Chinese play
　　Or Solomon himself might say
　　 I am your real mother.
　　
　　
　　4
　　
　　 No one can tell you why
　　 the season will not wait;
　　 the night I told you I
　　must leave, you wept a fearful rate
　　 to stay up late.
　　
　　 Now that it's turning Fan,
　　 we go to take our walk
　　 among municipal
　　flowers, to steal one off its stalk,
　　 to try and talk.
　　
　　 We huff like windy giants
　　 scattering with our breath
　　 gray-headed dandelions;
　　Spring is the cold wind's aftermath.
　　 The poet saith.
　　
　　 But the asters, too, are gray,
　　 ghost-gray. Last night's cold
　　 is sending on their way
　　petunias and dwarf marigold,
　　 hunched sick and old.
　　
　　 Like nerves caught in a graph,
　　 the morning-glory vines
　　 frost has erased by half
　　still scrawl across their rigid twines.
　　 Like broken lines
　　
　　 of verses I can't make.
　　 In its unraveling loom
　　 we find a flower to take,
　　with some late buds that might still bloom,
　　 back to your room.
　　
　　 Night comes and the stiff dew.
　　 I'm told a friend's child cried
　　 because a cricket, who
　　had minstreled every night outside
　　 her window, died.
　　
　　
　　5
　　
　　Winter again and it is snowing;
　　Although you are still three,
　　You are already growing
　　Strange to me.
　　
　　You chatter about new playmates, sing
　　Strange songs; you do not know
　　Hey ding-a-ding-a-ding
　　Or where I go
　　
　　Or when I sang for bedtime, Fox
　　Went out on a chilly night,
　　Before I went for walks
　　And did not write;
　　
　　You never mind the squalls and storms
　　That are renewed long since;
　　Outside, the thick snow swarms
　　Into my prints
　　
　　And swirls out by warehouses, sealed,
　　Dark cowbarns, huddled, still,
　　Beyond to the blank field,
　　The fox's hill
　　
　　Where he backtracks and sees the paw,
　　Gnawed off, he cannot feel;
　　Conceded to the jaw
　　Of toothed, blue steel.
　　
　　
　　6
　　
　　 Easter has come around
　　 again; the river is rising
　　 over the thawed ground
　　 and the banksides. When you come you bring
　　 an egg dyed lavender.
　　 We shout along our bank to hear
　　our voices returning from the hills to meet us.
　　 We need the landscape to repeat us.
　　
　　 You Jived on this bank first.
　　 While nine months filled your term, we knew
　　 how your lungs, immersed
　　 in the womb, miraculously grew
　　 their useless folds till
　　 the fierce, cold air rushed in to fill
　　them out like bushes thick with leaves. You took your hour,
　　 caught breath, and cried with your full lung power.
　　
　　 Over the stagnant bight
　　 we see the hungry bank swallow
　　 flaunting his free flight
　　 still; we sink in mud to follow
　　 the killdeer from the grass
　　 that hides her nest. That March there was
　　rain; the rivers rose; you could hear killdeers flying
　　 all night over the mudflats crying.
　　
　　 You bring back how the red-
　　 winged blackbird shrieked, slapping frail wings,
　　 diving at my head—
　　 I saw where her tough nest, cradled, swings
　　 in tall reeds that must sway
　　 with the winds blowing every way.
　　If you recall much, you recall this place. You still
　　 live nearby—on the opposite hill.
　　
　　 After the sharp windstorm
　　 of July Fourth, all that summer
　　 through the gentle, warm
　　 afternoons, we heard great chain saws chirr
　　 like iron locusts. Crews
　　 of roughneck boys swarmed to cut loose
　　branches wrenched in the shattering wind, to hack free
　　 all the torn limbs that could sap the tree.
　　
　　 In the debris lay
　　 starlings, dead. Near the park's birdrun
　　 we surprised one day
　　 a proud, tan-spatted, buff-brown pigeon.
　　 In my hands she flapped so
　　 fearfully that I let her go.
　　Her keeper came. And we helped snarl her in a net.
　　 You bring things I'd as soon forget.
　　
　　 You raise into my head
　　 a Fall night that I came once more
　　 to sit on your bed;
　　 sweat beads stood out on your arms and fore-
　　 head and you wheezed for breath,
　　 for help, like some child caught beneath
　　its comfortable wooly blankets, drowning there.
　　 Your lungs caught and would not take the air.
　　
　　 Of all things, only we
　　 have power to choose that we should die;
　　 nothing else is free
　　 in this world to refuse it. Yet I,
　　 who say this, could not raise
　　 myself from bed how many days
　　to the thieving world. Child, I have another wife,
　　 another child. We try to choose our life.
　　
　　
　　7
　　
　　Here in the scuffled dust
　　 is our ground of play.
　　I lift you on your swing and must
　　 shove you away,
　　see you return again,
　　 drive you off again, then
　　
　　stand quiet till you come.
　　 You, though you climb
　　higher, farther from me, longer,
　　 will fall back to me stronger.
　　Bad penny, pendulum,
　　 you keep my constant time
　　
　　to bob in blue July
　　 where fat goldfinches fly
　　over the glittering, fecund
　　 reach of our growing lands.
　　Once more now, this second,
　　 I hold you in my hands.
　　
　　
　　8
　　
　　I thumped on you the best I could
　　 which was no use;
　　you would not tolerate your food
　　until the sweet, fresh milk was soured
　　 with lemon juice.
　　
　　That puffed you up like a fine yeast.
　　 The first June in your yard
　　like some squat Nero at a feast
　　you sat and chewed on white, sweet clover.
　　 That is over.
　　
　　When you were old enough to walk
　　 we went to feed
　　the rabbits in the park milkweed;
　　saw the paired monkeys, under lock,
　　 consume each other's salt.
　　
　　Going home we watched the slow
　　stars follow us down Heaven's vault.
　　You said, let's catch one that comes low,
　　 pull off its skin
　　 and cook it for our dinner.
　　
　　 As absentee bread-winner,
　　I seldom got you such cuisine;
　　we ate in local restaurants
　　or bought what lunches we could pack
　　 in a brown sack
　　
　　with stale, dry bread to toss for ducks
　　 on the green-scummed lagoons,
　　crackers for porcupine and fox,
　　life-savers for the footpad coons
　　 to scour and rinse,
　　
　　snatch after in their muddy pail
　　 and stare into their paws.
　　When I moved next door to the jail
　　 I learned to fry
　　omelettes and griddle cakes so I
　　
　　could set you supper at my table.
　　As I built back from helplessness,
　　 when I grew able,
　　the only possible answer was
　　 you had to come here less.
　　
　　This Hallowe'en you come one week.
　　 You masquerade
　　 as a vermilion, sleek,
　　fat, crosseyed fox in the parade
　　or, where grim jackolanterns leer,
　　
　　go with your bag from door to door
　　foraging for treats. How queer:
　　 when you take off your mask
　　my neighbors must forget and ask
　　 whose child you are.
　　
　　Of course you lose your appetite,
　　 whine and won't touch your plate;
　　 as local law
　　I set your place on an orange crate
　　in your own room for days. At night
　　
　　you lie asleep there on the bed
　　 and grate your jaw.
　　Assuredly your father's crimes
　　 are visited
　　on you. You visit me sometimes.
　　
　　The time's up. Now our pumpkin sees
　　 me bringing your suitcase.
　　 He holds his grin;
　　the forehead shrivels, sinking in.
　　You break this year's first crust of snow
　　
　　off the runningboard to eat.
　　 We manage, though for days
　　I crave sweets when you leave and know
　　they rot my teeth. Indeed our sweet
　　 foods leave us cavities.
　　
　　
　　9
　　
　　 I get numb and go in
　　though the dry ground will not hold
　　 the few dry swirls of snow
　　and it must not be very cold.
　　A friend asks how you've been
　　 and I don't know
　　
　　 or see much right to ask.
　　Or what use it could be to know.
　　 In three months since you came
　　the leaves have fallen and the snow;
　　your pictures pinned above my desk
　　 seem much the same.
　　
　　 Somehow I come to find
　　myself upstairs in the third floor
　　 museum's halls,
　　walking to kill my time once more
　　among the enduring and resigned
　　 stuffed animals,
　　
　　 where, through a century's
　　caprice, displacement and
　　 known treachery between
　　its wars, they hear some old command
　　and in their peaceable kingdoms freeze
　　 to this still scene,
　　
　　 Nature Morte. Here
　　by the door, its guardian,
　　 the patchwork dodo stands
　　where you and your stepsister ran
　　laughing and pointing. Here, last year,
　　 you pulled my hands
　　
　　 and had your first, worst quarrel,
　　so toys were put up on your shelves.
　　 Here in the first glass cage
　　the little bobcats arch themselves,
　　still practicing their snarl
　　 of constant rage.
　　
　　 The bison, here, immense,
　　shoves at his calf, brow to brow,
　　 and looks it in the eye
　　to see what is it thinking now.
　　I forced you to obedience;
　　 I don't know why.
　　
　　 Still the lean lioness
　　beyond them, on her jutting ledge
　　 of shale and desert shrub,
　　stands watching always at the edge,
　　stands hard and tanned and envious
　　 above her cub;
　　
　　 with horns locked in tan heather,
　　two great Olympian Elk stand bound,
　　 fixed in their lasting hate
　　till hunger brings them both to ground.
　　Whom equal weakness binds together
　　 none shall separate.
　　
　　 Yet separate in the ocean
　　of broken ice, the white bear reels
　　 beyond the leathery groups
　　of scattered, drab Arctic seals
　　arrested here in violent motion
　　 like Napoleon's troops.
　　
　　 Our states have stood so long
　　At war, shaken with hate and dread,
　　 they are paralyzed at bay;
　　once we were out of reach, we said,
　　we would grow reasonable and strong.
　　 Some other day.
　　
　　 Like the cold men of Rome,
　　we have won costly fields to sow
　　 in salt, our only seed.
　　Nothing but injury will grow.
　　I write you only the bitter poems
　　 that you can't read.
　　
　　 Onan who would not breed
　　a child to take his brother's bread
　　 and be his brother's birth,
　　rose up and left his lawful bed,
　　went out and spilled his seed
　　 in the cold earth.
　　
　　 I stand by the unborn,
　　by putty-colored children curled
　　 in jars of alcohol,
　　that waken to no other world,
　　unchanging, where no eye shall mourn.
　　 I see the caul
　　
　　 that wrapped a kitten, dead.
　　I see the branching, doubled throat
　　 of a two-headed foal;
　　I see the hydrocephalic goat;
　　here is the curled and swollen head,
　　 there, the burst skull;
　　
　　 skin of a limbless calf;
　　a horse's foetus, mummified;
　　 mounted and joined forever,
　　the Siamese twin dogs that ride
　　belly to belly, half and half,
　　 that none shall sever.
　　
　　 I walk among the growths,
　　by gangrenous tissue, goiter, cysts,
　　 by fistulas and cancers,
　　where the malignancy man loathes
　　is held suspended and persists.
　　 And I don't know the answers.
　　
　　 The window's turning white.
　　The world moves like a diseased heart
　　 packed with ice and snow.
　　Three months now we have been apart
　　less than a mile. I cannot fight
　　 or let you go.
　　
　　
　　10
　　
　　The vicious winter finally yields
　　 the green winter wheat;
　　the farmer, tired in the tired fields
　　 he dare not leave will eat.
　　
　　Once more the runs come fresh; prevailing
　　 piglets, stout as jugs,
　　harry their old sow to the railing
　　 to ease her swollen dugs
　　
　　and game colts trail the herded mares
　　 that circle the pasture courses;
　　our seasons bring us back once more
　　 like merry-go-round horses.
　　
　　With crocus mouths, perennial hungers,
　　 into the park Spring comes;
　　we roast hot dogs on old coat hangers
　　 and feed the swan bread crumbs,
　　
　　pay our respects to the peacocks, rabbits,
　　 and leathery Canada goose
　　who took, last Fall, our tame white habits
　　 and now will not turn loose.
　　
　　In full regalia, the pheasant cocks
　　 march past their dubious hens;
　　the porcupine and the lean, red fox
　　 trot around bachelor pens
　　
　　and the miniature painted train
　　 wails on its oval track:
　　you said, I'm going to Pennsylvania!
　　 and waved. And you've come back.
　　
　　If I loved you, they said, I'd leave
　　 and find my own affairs.
　　Well, once again this April, we've
　　 come around to the bears;
　　
　　punished and cared for, behind bars,
　　 the coons on bread and water
　　stretch thin black fingers after ours.
　　 And you are still my daughter.