Lisel Mueller was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1924. She and her family fled Nazi persecution, arriving in the US in 1939. Her serious writing of poetry began in 1953, after the death of her mother. In 1981, she won the National Book Award for Poetry, and in 1997 she was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Her books of poetry include Dependencies (1965); The Private Life (1976); Voices from the Forest (1977); The Need to Hold Still (1980); Second Language (1986); Alive Together: New & Selected Poems (1996).

穆勒1924年2月8日生于德国汉堡一个知识分子家庭。15岁时，全家因反对希特勒移居美国。在她母亲去世之后（1953年），她开始写作。1981年，获全国图书奖，1997年获普利策诗歌奖。主要诗集有：《附属物》（1965）；《私人生活》（1976）；《来自森林的声音》（1977）；《需要安静》（1981）；《第二语言》（1986）；《一起活着：新诗选》（1996）等。

倪志娟，1970年生于湖北。哲学博士，现任教于杭州电子科技大学人文学院。学术之余创作并翻译诗歌、随笔。

Zhijuan Ni was born in Hubei Province in China in 1970. She holds a PHD degree in philosophy. She has published a number of translations in poetry. She teaches and lives in Hangzhou.

Blood Oranges

血橙

In 1936, a child
in Hitler's Germany,
what did I know about the war in Spain?
Andalusia was a tango
on a wind-up gramophone,
Franco a hero's face in the paper.
No one told me about a poet
for whose sake I might have learned Spanish
bleeding to death on a barren hill.
All I knew of Spain
were those precious imported treats
we splurged on for Christmas.
I remember pulling the sections apart,
lining them up, sucking each one
slowly, so the red sweetness
would last and last --
while I was reading a poem
by a long-dead German poet
in which the woods stood safe
under the moon's milky eye
and the white fog in the meadows
aspired to become lighter than air.
			

1936年，还是一个孩子，
在希特勒统治的德国，
我了解西班牙战争吗？
安达卢西亚是一支探戈舞曲
回旋在留声机上，
弗兰克是报纸上一位英雄的脸。
没有人告诉我，一个诗人
流尽了血，死在一座荒山，
为了他的缘故，我可能会学习西班牙语。
我所知道的西班牙，
是那些珍贵的进口礼品，
用来装点圣诞节。
我记得将它们撕开，
整齐地排好，一瓣一瓣
慢慢吮吸，因此红色的甜汁
一直有，一直有——
那时我正在读一首诗，
一个去世很久的德国诗人的诗，
在诗中，树林安然站立在
温柔的月光下，
而草地上的白雾
希望变得比空气更轻。
			

Small Poem About The Hounds And The Hares

关于猎犬和野兔的小诗

After the kill, there is the feast.
And toward the end, when the dancing subsides
and the young have sneaked off somewhere,
the hounds, drunk on the blood of the hares,
begin to talk of how soft 
were their pelts, how graceful their leaps,
how lovely their scared, gentle eyes.
			

猎杀之后，有欢宴。
舞会临近结束，热情平息下来，
年轻人偷偷溜到某处，
猎犬们，陶醉于野兔的血，
又开始谈论，它们的皮毛
多么柔软，它们的跳跃多么优雅，
它们受惊而温柔的眼睛多么可爱。
			

The Laughter Of Women

女人的笑声

The laughter of women sets fire
to the Halls of Injustice
and the false evidence burns
to a beautiful white lightness

It rattles the Chambers of Congress
and forces the windows wide open
so the fatuous speeches can fly out

The laughter of women wipes the mist
from the spectacles of the old;
it infects them with a happy flu
and they laugh as if they were young again

Prisoners held in underground cells
imagine that they see daylight
when they remember the laughter of women

It runs across water that divides,
and reconciles two unfriendly shores
like flares that signal the news to each other

What a language it is, the laughter of women,
high-flying and subversive.
Long before law and scripture
we heard the laughter, we understood freedom.
			

女人的笑声点燃了
不公正的会堂，
虚假的证据燃烧出
一道美丽的白光。

它使国会议事厅吵闹不休，
迫使窗子敞开，
愚蠢的言论飞出来。

女人的笑声擦去了
老人镜片上的薄雾；
使他们染上快乐的流感
他们笑着，仿佛重回青春，

地牢中的囚犯，
想象他们看见了阳光，
当他们记起女人的笑声。

它越过河面，连接起
对立的两岸， 
像信号那样，传送着彼此的消息。

女人的笑声，是一种语言， 
雄心勃勃，充满颠覆意图。
在法律和文件之前，
我们早已听见这笑声，我们理解了自由。
			

A Day Like Any Other

平常的一天

Such insignificance: a glance
at your record on the doctor's desk
or a letter not meant for you.
How could you have known? It's not true
that your life passes before you
in rapid motion, but your watch
suddenly ticks like an amplified heart,
the hands freezing against a white
that is a judgment. Otherwise nothing.
The face in the mirror is still yours.
Two men pass on the sidewalk
and do not stare at your window.
Your room is silent, the plants
locked inside their mysterious lives
as always. The queen-of-the-night
refuses to bloom, does not accept
your definition. It makes no sense,
your scanning the street for a traffic snarl,
a new crack in the pavement,
a flag at half-mast -- signs
of some disturbance in the world
because your friend, the morning sun,
has turned its dark side toward you.
			

如此无意义：瞥一眼
医生桌上你的体检报告，
或者一封不是写给你的信。
你无法预知，这不是真的——
在你来得及采取行动之前，你的生命已消逝了。
但是你的表
突然滴答滴答地响着，像一颗被放大的心，
你的手对着一纸判决
僵固了。除此之外什么也没有。
镜中的脸仍然是你的。
人行道走过的两个人
并没有盯着你的窗子看。
你的房间安静，植物们
和往常一样，被闭锁在它们的
神秘之中。昙花
拒绝开放，不接受
你的定义。你匆匆扫一眼
街上的混乱交通，这也毫无意义，
人行路上的一道新裂缝，
降下一半的旗子——意味着
世上有一些灾难发生了，
因为你的朋友，清晨的太阳，
已经面对你转向了它黑暗的那一面。