珍·赫希菲爾德《小謎團》

小謎團

忒綠 譯

門打開得足夠久
會有貓進來。
放點食物，它就會住下。
不久，在冷夜，
當你想從椅子裏起身
你會說“借過”。
但從來聽不到貓對你說
“借過”。
聽不到愛因斯坦的著名定理。
聽不到“憐憫之心並非出於勉強”。
貓類的詞典裏，憐憫一詞是缺失的。
這個缺失甚多的世界裏，
一隻貓隻填補了貓大小的空洞。
然而你的全身卻一次次轉向它
因為它就在那裏。


A small-sized mystery by Jane Hirshfield

Leave a door open long enough,
a cat will enter.
Leave food, it will stay.
Soon, on cold nights,
you’ll be saying “excuse me”
if you want to get out of your chair.
But one thing you’ll never hear from a cat
is “excuse me.”
Nor Einstein’s famous theorem.
Nor “The quality of mercy is not strained.”
In the dictionary of Cat, mercy is missing.
In this world where much is missing,
a cat fills only a cat-sized hole.
Yet your whole body turns toward it
again and again because it is there.