珍·赫希菲尔德《小谜团》

小谜团

忒绿 译

门打开得足够久
会有猫进来。
放点食物，它就会住下。
不久，在冷夜，
当你想从椅子里起身
你会说“借过”。
但从来听不到猫对你说
“借过”。
听不到爱因斯坦的著名定理。
听不到“怜悯之心并非出于勉强”。
猫类的词典里，怜悯一词是缺失的。
这个缺失甚多的世界里，
一只猫只填补了猫大小的空洞。
然而你的全身却一次次转向它
因为它就在那里。


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.