胡弦，1966年生于江苏铜山，现居南京，《扬子江诗刊》编辑。写诗歌散文，出版诗集《十年灯》(2007)，散文集《菜蔬小语》(2008)等，参加过诗刊社第18届“青春诗会”，曾获《人民文学》（2004）、《散文诗》（2003）、《诗潮》（2003）、《诗林》（1999）等杂志诗歌竞赛奖，2009年11月由中国作家协会《诗刊》社授予“新世纪十佳青年诗人”称号。

Hu Xian (1966-), born in Tong Shan County, Jiangsu Province, editor of The Yangtze River Journal in Nanjing. His poems appear in various newspapers and journals in China. Publications: Lamp of Ten Years (2007), a book of poems; Lyrical Essays on Vegetables (2008), a book of essays. He has received many literary awards. He was regarded as one of the "Ten Best Young Poets in New Century" by Shi Kan in Beijing, 2009.

Ziqing Zhang is professor of Institute of Foreign Literature, Nanjing University, Nanjing, guest research Fellow of Chinese American Literature Research Center, Beijing University of Foreign Studies, Beijing. He was a visiting scholar as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University from 1982 to 1983 and Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University and The University of California at Berkeley from 1993 to 1994. His works include A History of 20th Century American Poetry (1995, 1997), Selected Poems of T.S.Eliot (1985), Selected American Poems (1993) and Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes (1998). He has co-authored Two Sides of the Globe: Contemporary Chinese and American Literatures and Their Comparison (1993) and On American New Pastoral Poems (2006). He has received many awards including The First Prize of Humanities Research Science Foundation of Nanjing University in 1998.

张子清是南京大学外国文学研究所教授，北京外国语大学华裔美国文学研究中心客座研究员。哈佛-燕京访问学者（1982-83），美国富布莱特访问学者（1993-94）。中国作家协会会员、全国美国文学研究会常务理事、中国比较文学学会会员。代表作：《20世纪美国诗歌史》（1995，1997）。主编 “华裔美国小说丛书”（译林出版社）、“西方人看中国丛书”（南京出版社）。

梯子

A Ladder

我不能描摹的痛苦是一架梯子
我不能描摹的痛苦是梯子上的扶手
我不能描摹的痛苦是响彻脑海的脚步声

我不能描摹的痛苦从地面开始
上升十五米
悬置于空气中
			

The agony that I can hardly describe is a ladder,
And its handrails,
As well as the footfalls that is resounding in my mind. 

Starting from the ground
It Moves upward fifteen meters high
And stays on in the air 
			

火车上

On the Train

只有在火车上，在漫长旅途的疲倦中
你才能发现
除了火车偶尔的鸣叫，这深冬里一直不曾断绝的
另外一些声音：窗外，大地旋转如同一张
密纹唱片
脸贴着冰凉的玻璃，仔细听：
群山缓慢、磅礴的低音
大雁几乎静止的、贴着灰色云层的高音
旷野深处，一个农民：他弯着腰
像落在唱片上的
一粒灰尘：一种微弱到几乎不会被听见的声音
			

Only on the train you could find in your long trip fatigue
Some other incessant sounds in addition to its occasional whistles.
Out of its window., you could see
The field goes round and round like a micro-groove record.
When attentive to the outside of the train window
With your face pressing close to its glass 
You could hear the slow and majestic bourdon of mountains,
And the geese honk in alt when they fly in grey clouds,
And see a farmer bowing afar in wilderness like a particle of dust 
In a micro-groove record, who seems to utter a voice too thin to be heard.
			

蚂蚁

Ants

现在，我有了闲暇，看一看蚂蚁 
看看它们的巢，看看它们的匆忙，
看看它们在烈日下奔跑，阳光
在它们的足迹里不停地爆裂；
看看它们的大脑袋和为了生活
多长出来那么多的腿，
在山谷中，仍然有忙碌而孤寂的生活。
看到它们上树，我想起了自己敏捷的童年。
在垂直的道路上，一个人，并不比一只蚂蚁走得更快。
它们凭那几乎细微到看不见的触须前进，
是不是比我们盲目自大的抢跑高明？
它们即便已经衰老，葬礼临近，
看上去仍然那么兴奋，轻盈。
			

Now I'm glad to have some leisure to visit ants
And their nests, and look at their activities in a hurry, 
And their big heads and more than two legs 
To struggle for existence, and their busy life in the valley.
Closely I observe them running in the scorching sun
While the sunlight keeps exploding in their footprints,
And watch them climbing along the tree as quick as I did in my childhood.
You see, we can hardly walk more quickly as ants along the vertical way.
Ho, when you see them feeling their way skillfully with their tiny antennas,
Do you feel they're cleverer than us, the blindly conceited false starters?
Still they look enthusiastic, ecstatic and buoyant. 
When they're getting older and older, even approaching their death. 
    

一棵树

A Tree

一棵树如果看见了什么
它的身体也不会有任何变化
它总是站在事实之外

一棵树对任何事物
都不会感到奇怪
当它意识到要成为见证
就长出了新的枝杈

一棵树你已经看见它
你却未必真的看见了它
它不陪我们生
也不陪我们死
在它的内心
有另外的事物在飞奔
			

If a tree could see something,
It would feel indifferent,
As it stands outside of the facts.

A tree has no wonder about what has happened.
But it would spread its new branches
When it is aware of its role as a witness.

You might not really see a tree 
Even when you see it.
No any tree is our companion 
For life or death. To it, 
There are other things running
In its mind.  
			

时钟一直在安静地走动

The Clock Keeps Walking Quietly

时钟一直在安静地走动
在八月潮湿的乌云下
在原子凶猛的裂变
和宗教之间

一阵风又送来了光斑和阴影
——所有的风暴都有规律
在教堂的穹顶、尖塔，微微
弯曲的时候

空白的纸张在桌子上起伏
思想抱着低垂的脑袋

连远处的海洋也感到了眩晕
秒针却叩动钟摆
为自身的步伐带来晃动
			

The clock keeps walking quietly
Between the violent fission of atoms
And a religion under the wet dark clouds
In Autumn.

A gust of wind brings with spots of light and shadows
---All storms have their own law:
When they bend over 
At the top of churches and pagodas,

A piece of blank paper heaves
With its head low down in thought,

And the sea feels dizzy afar.
But the second hand of the clock 
Drives its pendulum for its own walk.