《然後是戰爭》 by 菲利普斯

然後是戰爭   /卡爾·菲利普斯  林木 譯

 

他們種花是因為房子有很多房間

因為他們想象過一種生活

每個房間都有插花，仿佛每朵都是一個句子

 

不僅是裝飾，而是賦予一些規範，

什麽是最令人難忘的句子——如同人——總是

稍微抗拒……彈丸之地；碎片的

 

雲。與此同時，

鷹巢，冬巢，耐力作為一種信仰，小海灣

等於一種生命，他們所指的，我認為，

 

就是他們稱之為靈魂，黃昏深深紮根

在石龍尾叢中，在富貴草中，那個風

吹不到的地方。

 

然後是戰爭。

然後是一塊場地，騎警

騎著他們驕傲的馬招搖走過。

 

然後是第二天早上的霧，場地人員在霧裏幾乎不可見

如影子般，如陰影般，

把場地修整得一塵不染。

 

然後窗簾從無光的房間飄出

朝著大海。

然後那個沒頭發的

 

撫摸著那個有些頭發的人。他們閉上眼睛。

假如輕柔，很難說有多輕柔。

然後戰爭並不是仍然使他們困惑的事，假如曾經有過。

 

Then the War

by Carl Philips

 

They planted flowers because the house had many rooms

and because they’d imagined a life in which

cut flowers punctuate each room, as if each were a sentence

 

not just to be decorated but to be given some discipline,

what the most memorable sentences—like people—always

slightly resist... Spit of land; rags

 

of cloud-rack. Meanwhile,

hawk’s-nest, winter-nest, stamina as a form of faith, little

cove that a life equals, what they meant, I think, by

 

what they called the soul, twilight taking hold

deep in the marshweed, in the pachysandra, where the wind

can’t reach.

 

Then the war.

Then the field, and the mounted police

parading their proud-looking horses across it.

 

Then the next morning’s fog, the groundsmen barely visible

inside it, shadow-like, shade-like,

grooming the field back to immaculateness.

 

Then the curtains billowing out from the lightless room

toward the sea.

Then the one without hair

 

stroked the one who had some. They closed their eyes.

If gently, hard to say how gently.

Then the war was nothing that still bewildered them, if it ever had.

[海邊紅樹]

欣賞了，戰爭對於老百姓來說，就是一場災難。平安是福。