罗伯特∙洛厄尔(Robert Lowell)诗二首

[戴玨]

《待售》

不幸而困窘的玩物，
在铺张的憎恶中安排好，
只住了一年──
我父亲在贝佛利农场的小屋，
就在他去世的那个月出售。
空洞丶开放丶亲密，
城市住房常见的那种家具
以踮着脚的姿态等待
紧随殡仪馆的人而来
的搬运工。
已做好准备，唯恐
独自活到八十岁，
母亲在一扇窗子里踟蹰，
就像是留在了一辆
已过了她的目的地的火车上。

1959


《结语》[1]

饶有趣味的结构丶情节和韵律──
既然我要凭想像，而不是回想，
创造些东西，
为何那些手法我都用不上呢？
我听到了自己嗓子里的噪音：
画家的视觉不是镜头，
而只是颤悠悠地抚摸光线。
可有时候以我这俗劣眼光
写出来的所有东西
都像是快照，
斑斓丶迅速丶花哨，自生活
崛起丶聚合，
却又因现实而瘫软。
全都不相称。
虽如此为何不说出实情？
祈求佛梅尔[2]式的精确，
那才叫优雅，他摹画的阳光
就像横过地图的潮水，悄悄地
照到他那位充满热望的女子身上。
我们是可怜丶短暂的真实事物，
知道了这点就要给予
照片中每一位人物
一个活生生的名字。

1977

译注：
[1]：这是洛厄尔生前最后出版的诗集《逐日》中收录的最后一首原创诗。
[2]：简∙佛梅尔：(1632-1675) 荷兰画家，以擅长表现光线的微妙变化而著称。


For Sale

Poor sheepish plaything,
organized with prodigal animosity,
lived in just a year ―
my Father's cottage at Beverly Farms
was on the market the month he died.
Empty, open, intimate,
its town-house furniture
had an on tiptoe air
of waiting for the mover
on the heels of the undertaker.
Ready, afraid
of living alone till eighty,
Mother mooned in a window,
as if she had stayed on a train
one stop past her destination.

1959

Epilogue

Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme──
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?
I hear the noise of my own voice:
The painter's vision is not a lens,
it trembles to caress the light.
But sometimes everything I write
with the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot,
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
All's misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?
Pray for the grace of accuracy
Vermeer gave to the sun's illumination
stealing like the tide across a map
to his girl solid with yearning.
We are poor passing facts,
warned by that to give
each figure in the photograph
his living name.

1977
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[Lake]

还真不知道townhouse的准确中文翻译。只知道，townhouse与独立的single family house 不同，大都共用一堵墙或一些公共设施，割草，铲雪不用自己做，要交association fee（物业管理费？).
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the trouble with poetry is that it encourages the writing of more poetry -- Billy Collins

[戴玨]

你說的是排屋，或稱連棟房屋。我這裏主要用了一般的意思，即城裏的住宅，和鄉下房子相對而言的。
_________________
I labour by singing light
我的blog
我的專欄