譯瑪格麗特·阿特沃德的詩《城市規劃員》

城市規劃員

 

駕車漫遊在周日下午的居民區

枯燥的八月陽光之下

我被這整潔冒犯：

房子學究式排列，人工栽培的樹木

幹幹淨淨，確保表麵的平整

像是在譴責我們撞癟了的車門

沒有喊叫，也無

玻璃的破碎聲

在受壓製的草地上剪出筆直的長條

割草機理性的轟鳴

是這裏聽到的最魯莽聲音

 

車道平平

化解了一切的歇斯底裏

所有的屋頂以相同的斜角

回避著火熱的天空，，，

但總有些滲漏的機油

車庫裏飄蕩著輕微的臭味

牆磚上潑濺的汙斑怪如淤青

塑料管卷成了不懷好意的套圈，甚至

窗戶也大張眼睛，虎視眈眈
 

關注它們

你就關注到

將來泥灰開裂之後的

景象
 

那時，房屋傾倒

斜斜地沒入泥之大海

過程慢如冰川

此刻無人知覺
 

那就是城市規劃員站立的地方

麵孔瘋癲，如政治陰謀家

布滿未經測量的區域

隱藏在彼此私有的暴風雪之中
 

猜測未來的方向

他們畫出臨時的線條

在消失的空氣中的牆上

像木質的邊界般嚴格
 

追著城郊的驚慌

在大雪溫和的狂亂中

確定出

秩序

The City Planners

By Margaret Atwood

 

Cruising these residential Sunday
streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities:
the houses in pedantic rows, the planted
sanitary trees, assert
levelness of surface like a rebuke
to the dent in our car door.
No shouting here, or
shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt
than the rational whine of a power mower
cutting a straight swath in the discouraged grass.

But though the driveways neatly
sidestep hysteria
by being even, the roofs all display
the same slant of avoidance to the hot sky,
certain things:
the smell of spilled oil a faint
sickness lingering in the garages,
a splash of paint on brick surprising as a bruise,
a plastic hose poised in a vicious
coil; even the too-fixed stare of the wide windows

give momentary access to
the landscape behind or under
the future cracks in the plaster

when the houses, capsized, will slide
obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers
that right now nobody notices.

That is where the City Planners
with the insane faces of political conspirators
are scattered over unsurveyed
territories, concealed from each other,
each in his own private blizzard;

guessing directions, they sketch
transitory lines rigid as wooden borders
on a wall in the white vanishing air

tracing the panic of suburb
order in a bland madness of snows