Robert Creeley (1926-2005), a prolific poet and a major American poet in the second half of the 20th century. He attended Harvard University and published his first poem in 1946. Through the Black Mountain Review and his own critical writings, he helped to define an emerging counter-tradition to the literary establishment. Robert Creeley had published more than sixty books of poetry in the United States and abroad, and received many awards. He served as New York State Poet Laureate from 1989 to 1991 and was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999.

罗伯特-克瑞里，1926-2005，20世纪下半叶美国重要的多产诗人。在哈佛大学读过书，1946年发表第一首诗。他通过黑山评论杂志及其他自己所写的评论，促使并定义了一种反传统的文学运动。克瑞里在美国及海外出版了六十多本诗集，得过多种荣誉。1989至1991年间他是纽约州的桂冠诗人，1999年他被当选为美国诗人学会会长。

Laoha, poet and translator, pen name of Xiaoqing Mario Li, born in China in 1960. He moved to USA in 1986 and made his residence in northern Nevada since 1987.

老哈，诗人、译者，原名李小庆，1960年出生于中国成都，1986年赴美，后定居内华达至今。

I Know A Man

我认识一哥们儿

As I sd to my 
friend, because I am 
always talking, -- John, I 

sd, which was not his 
name, the darkness sur- 
rounds us, what 

can we do against 
it, or else, shall we & 
why not, buy a goddamn big car, 

drive, he sd, for 
christ's sake, look 
out where yr going. 
			

我对我哥们儿说，
我就爱说个不停，
约翰，我说，

那并不是他的名字，
我们被黑暗
包围了，我们

该怎样来反抗，
或者干脆，我们去
买他娘的一辆大轿车，

开好车啊，他说，
看你把车
开到哪儿去了。
			

Goodbye

再见

                           
Now I recognize 
it was always me 
like a camera 
set to expose 

itself to a picture 
or a pipe 
through which the water 
might run 

or a chicken 
dead for dinner 
or a plan 
inside the head 

of a dead man. 
Nothing so wrong 
when one considered 
how it all began. 

It was Zukofsky's 
"Born very young into a world 
already very old..." 
The century was well along 

when I came in 
and now that it's ending, 
I realize it won't 
be long. 

But couldn't it all have been 
a little nicer, 
as my mother'd say. Did it 
have to kill everything in sight, 

did right always have to be so wrong? 
I know this body is impatient. 
I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind. 
Yet I loved, I love. 

I want no sentimentality. 
I want no more than home.
			

现在我认识到，
我从来都是这样。
像一部相机，
就等快门一闪，

拍出相片。
或者像一根管子，
可能会有水
从中流过。

或者像一只鸡，
宰好当作晚餐。
或者像一个计划
残留在

死人的脑海里。
想一想当初，
事情怎会变得如此
不可收拾。

茹可夫斯基说过：
“年幼的生命刚降临，
而世界已经老态龙钟...”。
我来时，

世纪已过大半，
而如今正面临结束，
我发现
它将不会长久。

难道这一切
不能像我母亲所说那样
更美好一点吗？一切
都非得毁灭在眼前吗？

对的为什么总会出错？
我知道这身子等得不耐烦。
我知道我只有贫弱的声音和头脑。
但我还是爱了，我爱。

我不要多愁善感。
我要的是家，别无它求。

译注：路易斯-茹可夫斯基(Louis Zukofsky)，1904-1978，美国作家，
最重要的第二代现代派诗人，客体诗派的创始人之一。
			

The Way

道

                           
Somewhere in all the time that's passed
was a thing in mind became the evidence,
the pleasure even in fact of being lost
so quickly, simply that what it was could never last.

Only knowing was measure of what one could
make hold together for that moment's recognition,
or else the world washed over like a flood
of meager useless truths, of hostile incoherence.

Too late to know that knowing was its own reward
and that wisdom had at best a transient credit.
Whatever one did or didn't do was what one could.
Better at last believe than think to question?

There wasn't choice if one had seen the light,
not of belief but of that soft, blue-glowing fusion
seemed to appear or disappear with thought,
a minute magnesium flash, a firefly's illusion.

Best wonder at mind and let that flickering ambience
of wondering be the determining way you follow,
which leads itself from day to day into tomorrow,
finds all it ever finds is there by chance.
			

很简单，往事不长久，
即便是顷刻即至的痴迷快乐，
悠悠岁月里的某些时刻
早己为此在脑海里留下了明证。

眼前认识所能够把握的一切
只有用知情来衡量。不然，
贫乏无用的真实、不知所以的仇意
将会如同洪水一样泛滥世界。

知情太迟也有它可取的一面，
智慧充其量也只有短暂的信用。
做过或者没做过什么由其能力来决定。
难道最终还是信仰比思考发问好？

既然看见了光，就别无选择。
这里说的不是信仰之光，而是随思想
一同出现、一同消失的柔和、熔融蓝光，
极短的镁闪光，一只萤火虫的幻觉。

最好还是保持好奇心吧，
让闪烁的好奇情绪决定你前方的路，
作为每天通往明天的指引，
来发现一切由于偶然而来临的发现。
			

Return

返回

Quiet as it is proper for such placees;
The street, subdued, half-snow, half rain,
Endless, but ending in the darkened doors.
Inside, they who will be there always,
Quiet as is proper for such places ---
Enough for now to be here, and 
To know my door is one of these.
			

这地方照常很安静。
平息的街道，一半是雪，
一半是雨，没有尽头似的，
终止于幽暗的门洞。那儿，
始终在里面的人照常很安静。
如今能来这儿就足够了，因为
我知道，其中之一是我的门。
			

Old Story

老故事

                           
Like kid on float 
of ice block sinking
in pond the field had made
from winter's melting snow

so wisdom accumulated
to disintegrate 
in conduits of brain
in neural circuits faded

while gloomy muscles shrank
mind padded the paths
its thought had wrought
its habits had created

till like kid afloat
on ice block broken
on or inside the thing it stood
or was forsaken
			

犹如小孩漂浮
在下沉的冰块上
就要掉入田野里
冬雪融化成的池塘

如此会分解沉淀
积聚的智慧
在萎缩的神经电路里
留入脑子里的沟回

同时忧郁的肌肉皱缩
头脑在路径徒步
它的思想形成
它的习惯长出

直到犹如小孩漂浮
在破碎的冰块上
或在其上或在其中
或者被抛荒
			

The Mirror

镜子

                           
Seeing is believing.
Whatever was thought or said,

these persistent, inexorable deaths
make faith as such absent,

our humanness a question,
a disgust for what we are.

Whatever the hope,
here it is lost.

Because we coveted our difference,
here is the cost.
			

眼见为实。
无论你怎么想怎么说，

这死亡的顽固无情
使信仰无影无踪，

我们厌恶自己，
做人已成为一个问题。

无论什么样的希望，
到这儿都消失了。

因为我们垂涎别人的不同，
这就是代价。