Thomas R. Smith is a poet and critic living in River Falls, Wisconsin. His five books of poems are Keeping the Star (New Rivers Press, 1988), Horse of Earth (Holy Cow! Press, 1994), The Dark Indigo Current (Holy Cow! Press, 2000), Winter Hours (Red Dragonfly Press, 2005), and Waking Before Dawn (Red Dragonfly Press, 2007). He has edited a selection of the Canadian poet Alden Nowlan, What Happened When He Went to the Store for Bread (Nineties Press, 1993). His work has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac public radio program. He teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.

托马斯-R-史密斯是居于威斯康星州河瀑城的诗人兼评论家。他的五卷诗集乃《看守星辰》（新河出版社，1988），《地球之马》（圣牛出版社，1994），《蓝黑的涌流》（圣牛出版社，2000），《冬时》（红蜻蜓出版社，2005），及《醒于黎明前》（红蜻蜓出版社，2007）。他主编了加拿大诗人奥尔登．瑙兰的选集《他去商店买面包时发生了什么》（九十年代出版社，1993）。他的作品在伽瑞森-克洛的作家年鉴公共广播节目专题播出。他执教于明尼阿波利斯市的阁楼文学中心。

生于中国重庆，上小学时随父母移居上海。毕业于复旦大学，并分别在美国两所大学获得学位。诗天空诗人协会会员。发表诗歌数十篇。现居南加州。

Yuan Liang was born in Chongqing, China. He moved to Shanghai with his parents while he attended elementary school. He graduated from Fudan University and holds graduate degrees from two American universities. He is a member of PoetrySky Poets Association and his poems appeared in a number of major poetry journals and anthologies in China and the US. He lives in Southern California.

Trust

信任

It's like so many other things in life
to which you must say no or yes.
So you take your car to the new mechanic.
Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.

The package left with the disreputable-looking
clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,
the envelope passed by dozens of strangers
all show up at their intended destinations.

The theft that could have happened doesn't.
Wind finally gets where it was going
through the snowy trees, and the river, even
when frozen, arrives at the right place.  

And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life
is delivered, even though you can1t read the address.
			

一如生活中其它纷繁之事
你必须说不是或者是
因此你把车送到新机修店
有时信任乃最可做之事

包裹留给貌不可信的
办事员，被夜存款吞没的支票
信封经众多的陌生人传递
全都出现于预定的目的地

偷窃本可发生但却没有
风最终抵达要去的地方
穿过多雪的树木，河流，即便
被冻住，仍能如愿以偿

有时你感到生活是多么忠实地
被传送，即使你无法读出地址
			

Peace

平安

White owl-feathers of snow brush the car,
hardly touching it.  I think of friends
I haven't seen in years, flown out of reach,
in my mind never growing older.  Our
memory's fondness for things as we've known them
opens us to shock after shock.  Only those
near at hand seem to travel at our speed, 
ordinary diminishments barely 
registering, until one day the sudden glance
in which we see.  And what if, against the odds,
the body should prevail its brief span
to ripen naturally, without being blasted, 
blown to bits, drowned, burned, crushed or 
tortured, what then?  Even so, peace might hold
more than we can stand of sorrow.
			

雪的猫头鹰白羽拂着轿车
几乎未触动它。我想到朋友们
多年未见，渺无音讯
但在我脑中从未变老。我们的
记忆倾向于记住
使我们震惊不断之事。只有那些
咫尺之物似乎与我们同速前行，
平凡普通的减损几乎不能
留下印记，非要到某日突然的一瞥
我们才从中领会。即使凭着侥幸
肉体顺利地完成其短暂一生
自然地成熟，不被暴害
吹成细屑，淹死，烧焦，碾碎或
被折磨，那又怎么样？即使如此，平安也许拥有
多于我们所能承受的悲哀。