Mark Anderson has published two books of poetry, The Broken Boat and Serious Joy. His poetry has been published in many periodicals, including Poetry, The Hudson Review, Poetry Northwest, and Southern Poetry Review. He comes from Wichita, Kansas and was educated at Cornell University. He teaches at Rhode Island College.

马克-安德森曾出版过两本诗集：《破舟》和《严肃的快乐》。他的诗发表于《诗》、《哈德森评论》、《西北诗刊》、《南方诗评》等许多诗刊中。他生于坎萨斯州威曲塔，在康奈尔获博士学位。他现任教于罗得岛州立学院。

Yidan Han is the author of two books of poetry Standing against the Wind (1993) and Selected Poems of Green Voice (2004, bilingual). She is the editor of The PoetrySky Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2005-2006) (PoetrySky Press, 2007) and a coauthor of the first Dictionary of Rhetoric (2000) and other academic books. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of poetrysky.com and the bilingual poetry quarterly Poetry Sky. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

绿音，原名韩怡丹。著有诗集《临风而立》（1993）、《绿音诗选》（2004，中英双语），主编《诗天空当代华语诗选》（2005-2006）双语版（2007，美国诗天空出版社）。《诗天空》双语季刊创办人、主编。现居美国罗得岛州普罗维登斯。

The Light at the End

光的尽头

If it weren’t for the suddenness of things, the quick

dip into what’s there, really—what use would we be?

Not that the mind, as it rushes up and inward, ever

stops, or could be satisfied to stop, in those narrow

pastures of incidental being—no: but when, in its weightless

dance, it forgets to doubt the heaviness

of being, the necessity, the certainty of the flesh: then comes

the serious joy, what we’re here for, the work.





Today it's snowing, with wind enough to make all

things beyond this desk an indefinite gray.  Indefinite

books gather darkness on the wall; and the window,

not dark or light, is emptied of all but the faint

whistle of glass as it tunes itself to the wind.

And what comes to mind but freedom?—the unbounded

void you could fill with everything your own, like Plato, like the blind

poets flying into some different light!  But nothing, no

spirit called from heaven or hell will fill



so bodily an absence: freedom's a thing

impossible in the indeterminate air, unless something,

some possible thing turns real, and the one real earth

unfolds, opens inward as the sea does for a diver.

And now what comes to mind's the body's sluggish

learning, unbounded patience, certainty.

On the windowsill over the desk a cardinal lights, and gives

his sliding song, declaration of bright presence: he insists

all red just now has sung, heard itself, risen

past image, past meaning, into what is, what's known.



Note: The poem was first published in Serious Joy (1990, Orchises Press)

			

如果它不是事发突然，真正很快

浸入那里——我们会有什么用吗?

不是只是心灵，它内外奔突着，曾经

停止, 或能满意于停止,在那些

偶有生命的狭窄牧场——不是：但当它失重

舞蹈, 它忘记怀疑生命的

沉重, 必要性, 肉欲的必需和理所当然: 然后

严肃的喜悦来临, 为什么我们在这里：工作。 



今天下着雪, 风足以让这张书桌之外的所有

东西都成为一种模糊的灰色。模糊的

书在墙壁上聚集黑暗; 并且不明不暗的窗口

被倒空一切，除了微弱玻璃口哨随风定调

而除了自由之外什么浮现于脑海? 你能用

你自己无边的空虚填满一切，象柏拉图，象

失明的诗人飞入一些不同的光! 但没什么, 没有

来自天堂或地狱的精神将填装 



因此亲自缺席：自由是一件

在不确定的空气中不可能存在的事物，除非某种

某些可能的事物变成真的，且一个真正的地球

展开，向内敞开，如海洋为一个潜水者所做的。

现在进入脑海的是身体懒散的

学问，无限的耐心，确定。

在书桌后的窗台一只红鸟突降，唱着

动听的歌，发表其明亮的存在声明：

他坚持所有红色刚刚唱毕, 听见自己,从

过去的图象, 过去的意思升起, 进入那些，那些已知。