詞法

【美】埃莉諾·威爾納? ? ? 陳子弘? 譯

用英語問：它是何意？
用意大利語問：那要怎么表達(dá)它？
我以意大利語方式問，這賦予詞以欲望。
大腦皮質(zhì)想如何被表述。它從昏睡中
蹣跚而來 ，到了水邊，飽飲，
然后搖擺，在水中劃出寬闊的波紋，在弧線上
捕捉到陽光。然而，在詩歌課上。
導(dǎo)師問起這個(gè)圖景：“它意味著什么？”
而且啊，現(xiàn)已頗有點(diǎn)噸位的大象
又想要脫離減重隊(duì)列的大象，
正沿著陡峭的小徑
要去天空侵入山峰的所在，
它把自己包裹在云中，那種朦朧
警惕的大象愿意沉溺其中
當(dāng)追蹤到它的巢穴時(shí)。
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?而在那里，
在懸崖邊，靠近巨石，云層
飄進(jìn)飄出，在林木線之上飄逸。
一個(gè)大詞，挽歌，翼展九英尺，
想說成是一只兀鷹，一只從滅絕
中救出來放歸自然的兀鷹。
它在灰云邊的懸崖上安頓
下來，云被理解為一頭大象，
無論看起來多么模糊。這頭兀鷹，
就是一種鷲，粉紅色皮膚又骯又皺
還有冰冷的眼睛，但卻敏感又相當(dāng)
熱心，樂意在這個(gè)安全天地與大象
打成一片，這兒話語可以隨意說出——隨心
或重或輕：又如云一樣沉重卻
輕盈，或翱翔著搜尋死物。

【詩人簡介】埃莉諾·威爾納（Eleanor Wilner，生于1937年）是當(dāng)代美國詩人和文學(xué)編輯。她曾任《美國詩歌評(píng)論》編輯，《花萼》雜志顧問編輯，曾于芝加哥大學(xué)、西北大學(xué)和史密斯學(xué)院任教。她是沃倫-威爾遜學(xué)院作家碩士課程的指導(dǎo)老師。2019年，她獲得了羅伯特·弗羅斯特獎(jiǎng)?wù)?，這是美國詩歌協(xié)會(huì)頒發(fā)給“為美國詩歌提供了杰出的終身服務(wù)”的獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)。

OF A WORD

By Eleanor Wilner

English asks: What does it mean?
Italian asks: How does it want to be said?
I ask in the way of Italian, which gives to words desire,
how gray matter wants to be said. It lumbers
up from drowse, makes its way to water, fills its trunk,
then swings it, making of water a wide arc, in which
the sunlight is caught. Meanwhile, in the poetry class,
the instructor asks of the image: “What does it mean?”
and the elephant, which by now is a tonnage
that wants to get out of the range of reduction,
is making its way up the steep trail
of the mountain to where sky invades the peaks,
where it wraps itself in cloud, the kind of obscurity
that a wary elephant is willing to indulge in
when tracked back toward its lair.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?And up there,
on the cliffside, near where the clouds are drifting
in and out of the boulders, far above the tree line,
a large word, elegy, with a nine foot wing span,
wants to be said as a condor, one saved from
extinction and recently released to the wild.
It settles down on a bluff next to the gray
cloud which it understands as an elephant,
however obscure it appears. The condor,
who is a vulture of sorts, has dirty pink wrinkled
skin, and a cold eye, but is sensitive and quite
warm-hearted, and is pleased to consort with
the elephant in this safe aerie, where words
are said as they wish to be said—weighty or
winged as they please: heavy but light as
clouds are, or soaring in search of the dead.