Donald Hall was born in 1928 in Connecticut. Since 1975, he has lived in New Hampshire on a family farm. He has published twenty books of poems, and many books of prose, of which the most recent is a memoir, Unpacking the Boxes, which came out on his 80th birthday. White Apples and the Taste of Stone (2006) is his new and selected poems. He is the 14th poet laureate of the United States and received many awards.

唐纳德-霍尔1928年生于康涅迪格州。自1975以来，他在新罕布什尔州一座祖传的农庄中专事写作。他曾出版过20本诗集、数本散文集, 其中最新的回忆录是在他80岁生日时出版的《打开盒子》。《白苹果和石头的味道》(2006)是他的最新诗选。他是第14任美国桂冠诗人, 获得过无数诗奖。

林旭曾在海内外报刊发表诗文，现居西安，从事媒体工作。

Lin Xu has published poems and articles in various newspapers and magazines. He lives in Xi An.

Affirmation

证实

To grow old is to lose everything. 
Aging, everybody knows it. 
Even when we are young, 
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads 
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer 
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters 
into debris on the shore, 
and a friend from school drops 
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us 
past middle age, our wife will die 
at her strongest and most beautiful. 
New women come and go. All go. 
The pretty lover who announces 
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand. 
Another friend of decades estranges himself 
in words that pollute thirty years. 
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge 
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.
			

老去就意味着失去一切。
变老，每个人都懂。
即便在我们年轻时，
我们也会时而瞥见它，当一位老人
死去时，我们点点头。
然后，我们在仲夏的池塘里
划着船，无知而又满足地度过了许多年。但是一场
开始时无害的婚姻，
在岸上裂成碎片，
一位同窗好友离开了，冷冷地落在
布满岩石的岸上。
如果一场新的爱情
带着我们度过中年，我们的妻子
将在最强壮最美丽的时刻死去。
新的女人来了又走了。全走了。
那声称自己是临时情人的
漂亮女人
就是临时的。那勇敢的女人，
在我们老年时出现的中年女人，
沉入她无法抵抗的焦渴中。
又一位数十年交情的朋友将自己锁在
语言中，玷污了三十年时光。
让我们在池塘边的淤泥中窒息吧，
让我们来证实，失去一切
是合适的，有趣的。