Mary Oliver was born in 1935 in Maple Heights, Ohio. She attended both Ohio State University and Vassar College, but did not receive a degree from either institution. She held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College until 2001. In addition to such major awards as the Pulitzer and National Book Award, Oliver has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has also won the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Prize and Alice Fay di Castagnola Award. She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

玛丽-奥利弗1935年9月10日生于美国俄亥俄州，13岁开始写诗，1962年玛丽前往伦敦，后又回到美国。她的诗歌赢得了多项奖项，其中包括国家图书奖和普利策诗歌奖（1984年）。她的主要诗集有：《夜晚的旅行者》（1978），《美国原貌》 （1983）， 《灯光的屋宇》（1990），《新诗选》（1992），《白松》（1994）等。她现居马萨诸塞州。

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。著有诗集《四月的墙下》《时间的乡愁》《原始角落》。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 he has published a book of poetry Beneath the Wall of April (2009), Homesick of Time(2010), and The Primitive Corner (2011). He lives in Southern California.

The Summer Day

夏日

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
			

谁创造了世界？
谁造了天鹅，还有黑熊？
谁造了蚱蜢？
这个蚱蜢，就是
从草丛腾飞而出的那个，
在我手上吃糖的那个，
下巴前后移动而非上下移动的那个——
用硕大而复杂的眼睛东张西望的那个。
现在她抬起苍白的前臂透彻地洗脸。
现在她拍打开翅膀，飘浮而去。
我不确知什么是祈祷。
可我知道如何专注，如何倒入  
草丛，如何在草中跪倒，
如何停下来领受祝福，如何漫步穿过田野，
我已经终日如此。
告诉我，还有什么我应该去做？
难道不是万物最后皆死，而且太快？
告诉我，你打算做些什么
用你野性而宝贵的生命？