《然后是战争》 by 菲利普斯

然后是战争   /卡尔·菲利普斯  林木 译

 

他们种花是因为房子有很多房间

因为他们想象过一种生活

每个房间都有插花，仿佛每朵都是一个句子

 

不仅是装饰，而是赋予一些规范，

什么是最令人难忘的句子——如同人——总是

稍微抗拒……弹丸之地；碎片的

 

云。与此同时，

鹰巢，冬巢，耐力作为一种信仰，小海湾

等于一种生命，他们所指的，我认为，

 

就是他们称之为灵魂，黄昏深深扎根

在石龙尾丛中，在富贵草中，那个风

吹不到的地方。

 

然后是战争。

然后是一块场地，骑警

骑着他们骄傲的马招摇走过。

 

然后是第二天早上的雾，场地人员在雾里几乎不可见

如影子般，如阴影般，

把场地修整得一尘不染。

 

然后窗帘从无光的房间飘出

朝着大海。

然后那个没头发的

 

抚摸着那个有些头发的人。他们闭上眼睛。

假如轻柔，很难说有多轻柔。

然后战争并不是仍然使他们困惑的事，假如曾经有过。

 

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.

[海边红树]

欣赏了，战争对于老百姓来说，就是一场灾难。平安是福。