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Reid Mitchell
里德-米切尔
 A New Orleanian teaching in China. More specifically, he is a Scholar in Jiangsu Province’s 100 Foreign Talents Program, and a Professor of English at Yancheng Teachers University. He is also Consulting Editor of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. His poems have been published by Cha, Asia Literary Review, and elsewhere. And he has a collection due out from a small press in Berlin. Way back in the 20th century, he published the novel A Man Under Authority. He also had a separate career as an historian of the American Civil War.
里德-米切尔，新奥尔良人，美国内战历史学家。在中国教学，任盐城师范学院教授，第四批江苏外专百人计划入选者。香港《茶：亚洲文学杂志》咨询编辑。他的诗篇发表在《茶：亚洲文学杂志》和其它报刊上。著有小说：《权威下的男人》（1997）。他的诗集将在德国柏林出版。
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译者
Translator
张子清
Ziqing Zhang
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）。
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.
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Flowers Are as Permanent as Brick, and Two Other Poems |
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花儿像砖头一样永恒 |
Snow flecked with orange as if it fell from the sun
A shambles of ripped branches
The ground has grown lemons and bright hailstones
Yellow wasps attack the cold air.
In two hours it will be summer again
for some. The yard and the year will recover
Here snow is never seasonable.
A deep freeze is what we fear.
The trees, so young, already yield a past:
We planted the lemon in sawdust and sand,
stray cat litterbox, the yard’s bad patch.
Iron nails rust at the roots of the lime
and the satsuma. The blood orange and olive
are whims, with nothing promised.
The wise build on rock, the foolish on sand,
but here people build on mud.
When we dug up this yard, we unearthed
bricks enough to make a mansion. We laughed.
A house stood here once. It sank. If we dig deep,
we’d hit the roof.
What we found, revealed by the true path
of water, was cement slab, cracked by nut sedge
and St. Augustine grass, hard to break
with hand, foot, and shovel, poured to some purpose
as remote to us as an ancient cult.
We bought a house with bones underneath
and termites in its beams, and we built on it.
It’s our roof of tin the future finds, and our walls
not quite concrete, no longer wood. I hope
our lemon tree remains, bearing fruit
for love, strength, and bitterness,
and that the orange bleeds color like the sun.
No matter how big the storm,
You can’t stop people from building houses.
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雪上有橙色的斑点，仿佛从太阳上掉下来似的，
一堆折断的乱七八糟的树枝。
地上长出了一只只柠檬和亮晶晶的冰雹，
黄色的黄蜂攻击冷空气。
两个小时后，对一些人来说，又是
夏天了。院子和这一年都会复苏。
这里的雪从来都不合时宜。
我们害怕的是深度冻结。
这么年轻的树，已经有了过去：
我们把柠檬种在锯木屑和沙子里，
流浪猫的砂盒，是院子里的坏补丁。
酸橙树和蜜橘树的根部有铁钉生锈。
红橙和橄榄结不结果，结的好不好，
真是很难说定。
智者在岩石上建筑，愚人在沙土上建造，
但是，这里的人在泥土上搞基建。
当我们挖掘这个院子时，我们发掘
出来的砖头足以建造一座大厦。我们笑了。
有一栋房子曾经座立在此，它下沉了。
如果挖得深一点，我们就会撞上它的屋顶。
我们通过水的真实路径发现的水泥板
被难对付的莎草和圣奥古斯丁草裂开，
难以用手、脚和铲子搞破，
倾倒在此的某种目的，对我们而言，
像古老的祭仪一样遥远。
我们买了一座房屋，屋下面有骨头，
梁上有白蚁，我们就在上面盖房子。
我们的屋顶将是铁皮屋顶，不全用
水泥砌墙，也不再用木头。我希望
我们的柠檬树仍然为爱、力量和苦涩
而结果，橘子的颜色像太阳一样红。
不管暴风雨有多大，
你不能阻止人们建造房屋。
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"I Planted a Banana Tree Outside Our Window"
——Li Qingzhao speaks to her husband who is long absent |
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“窗前谁种芭蕉树”
——李清照对久违的丈夫倾诉。 |
Banana tree in frozen rain:
nothing looks more dead, nothing harder to kill.
An axe can’t chop through.
My garden saw makes it bleed milk.
The trunk won’t rot, can’t burn,
but a field mouse leaves his footprint.
We planted the tree under our window.
Even cut to the ground, roots and stump,
its heart reaches up to pierce the gray sky,
and flower in the sun.
Too tired to dry my sandalwood hair.
Today I hack it short with a paring knife.
Black and crystal against the cinnamon tiles.
If you ever rap on the window, remember
I’ve grown too old to blush. The nape of my neck
needs your breath to warm it.
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冻雨中的芭蕉树：没有什么看上去
比这更死气沉沉，比这更难砍伐。
斧子砍不透。
我的园林锯使它流出白浆。
树干不会腐烂，不能燃烧，
但是，田鼠留下脚印。
我们把芭蕉树栽在窗户下面。
甚至把它砍到地面、树根和树桩，
芭蕉树心向上长，刺穿灰色的天空，
在阳光下开花。
太累了，懒得吹干用檀香洗发水洗的
湿头发。今天我用水果刀把它削短了。
灰黑头发掉在黄棕色瓷砖地板上。
如果你曾敲打过窗户，记住，
我已经年龄大了，不会脸红了。
我的颈背需要你的呼吸来温暖。
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Who Will Sing For Me?
——For Marjorie Kemper (1944-2009) |
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谁来为我歌唱？
——给马乔里·肯珀（1944-2009） |
I
While your father died
you spoke of nothing to him
but life.
A hunter, a maker of maps,
a man of the North
who lived his life south,
not from inclination,
but love.
This body in the white bed,
tied by tubes, fever
crossing its forehead
like flies, sticky-footed,
this body the wax paring
of the man who raised you
who put iodine on your cuts
and tried to throw
your one-eyed boyfriend
through your bedroom window
You returned him
to the woods of his childhood.
You filled the white room
with snow and the animals
that know how to live in snow.
Elk and white-tailed deer,
ruffled grouse, black bear,
red fox, snowy owl.
His old hunting hound hot,
sleeping by a green-wood fire,
whimpering. Poor dog.
Suffers bad dreams.
Your voice, ever soft,
whisky glazed:
Before dawn, Daddy,
we'll drive Thief River Falls
to Whisky Lake.
Sharing the cup,
we'll drink coffee
sugared heavy
from the plaid thermos.
You'll fish while I build a fire
the way you taught.
Grilled trout, fried eggs,
and bacon for breakfast.
A nap for you,
while I drive back.
Don't be afraid.
Sleep, father,
till we come home.
II
You were not
a snowbound creature.
When the snow broke fences
and the fox feet pranced
across the crust
you made no complaint
against snow, fox, or God.
You knew we are all
pitched into the natural world.
When you sat, you heard the owl
in flight, saw the small eyes
of the mole in his burrow,
smelt the wet fur and panicked breath
of brown field mice.
A backyard isn't civilized,
it should be a slice of nature.
You loved the smell
of rabbits fucking.
You forgave the gray owls
waiting to carry
each sad rabbit off.
You knew we yip
like Boston terriers,
tugging at God, demanding
attention.
You set your best furniture
out on your lawn and we watched
for shooting stars.
You told me life
is a temporary arrangement
between us and nature.
Foxes love fences:
they keep the chickens caged.
III
Smell of eucalyptus
light from hunter's moon.
Your one-eyed husband
loads the car, leashes
a big black bear of a dog,
and a gold feist,
willful as you,
the slim daughter
who climbed out
her bedroom window
when the bougainvillea
bloomed red.
This graybeard matures
into a monk. He takes
your mutts along.
IV
I once swam in the straits
between Nevis and St. Kitts
with a woman
I will always love
Let water that warm,
that precise salt,
raise me up
toward that same moon.
When I sink down,
finally,
tell me,
no, I float away
Freely.
V
When the night
refused to breath
you lay on the dry ground
under a white oak and said
the earth is eternity enough.
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一
你父亲死的时候，
你对他说的
全是生命。
一位猎人，一位地图
制作者，一位生活在
南方的北方人，
不是出于爱好，
而是出于爱。
这个身躯躺在白色的床上，
被导管绑着，穿越前额的发烧
像苍蝇的脚牢牢地粘住额头，
这个好似蜡像削了
蜡的躯体养育了你，
他曾在你的伤口上
涂碘酒，试着
把你的独眼男友扔出
卧室的窗户之外。
你把他送回了
童年的树林。
你在白色的空间置放了
雪，还有那些知道如何在
雪中生活的动物。
麋鹿和白尾鹿，
皱皮松鸡，黑熊，
红狐狸，雪鸮。
他的老猎犬感到很热，
睡在新砍的木材火旁，
呜咽着。可怜的狗。
做着恶梦。
你的声音，永远温柔，
由于喝威士忌而粗嗄了：
黎明前，爸爸，
我们将朝锡夫里弗福尔斯
驶去，到达威士忌湖。
合用杯子，
我们将喝
格子保温瓶里
加糖的咖啡。
你会去钓鱼，而我
用你教的方式生火。
早餐吃烤鳟鱼、
煎蛋和熏肉。
你打个盹，
我开车返回。
不要怕。
睡吧，爸爸，
直到我们回家。
二
你过去不是
被雪困住的人。
当雪压垮栅栏，
狐狸的脚跃过
积雪层时，
你并不抱怨
雪、狐狸或上帝。
你知道我们都被
投身到自然世界。
当你坐下来时，
你听到猫头鹰在飞翔，
看到洞穴里鼹鼠的小眼睛，
闻到棕色田鼠的湿毛
和惊恐的呼吸。
后院不是开化的，
它应该是自然的一部分。
你喜欢交配着的兔子气味。
你原谅灰色猫头鹰
等待着把
每只悲伤的兔子
都带走。
你知道我们叫喊，
像波士顿的小猎犬
一样，扯着上帝，
要求注意。
你把最好的家具
放在草坪上，
我们观察流星。
你告诉我生命是
我们和自然之间的
临时安排。
狐狸爱鸡窝，
鸡窝里关着鸡。
三
桉树的气味
猎人的月亮之光
你的独眼丈夫装载车，
用皮带系住一只大黑熊
那样的狗，还有一只
像你一样任性的
金毛小犬，
当三角梅
开着红花时，
那苗条的姑娘
从卧室的窗户
爬了出来。
这个长灰白胡须的人
成熟得像修道士，
他牵着你的狗走了。
四
我曾经和一个
我将永远爱着的女人
在尼维斯和圣基茨
之间的海峡里游泳。
让那温暖的水，
让那精盐，
把我朝上托向
那同样的月亮。
当我下沉，
终了时，
告诉我，
不，我漂走了
自由地。
五
当夜晚拒绝呼吸时，
你躺在干燥的地面上
在一棵白橡树下，
说地球
已经足够永恒了。
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