四月最后一周的一天下午

One afternoon the last week in April

教卡伊怎样抛掷战斧

Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet

转动一半它就插入树桩。

One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.

他想起战斧的头

He recalls the hatchet-head

没有柄，在商店

Without a handle, in the shop

拿它，想把它作为己有。

And go gets it, and wants it for his own.

门后的一根断掉的柄

A broken-off axe handle behind the door

长得足以作斧柄，

Is long enough for a hatchet,

我们按长度刻划它，把它

We cut it to length and take it

与战斧的头

With the hatchet head

还有工作斧一起拿到木砧上。

And working hatchet, to the wood block.

在那里我开始用战斧

There I begin to shape the old handle

给旧斧柄造型，最初

With the hatchet, and the phrase

向埃兹拉·庞德学到的警句

First learned from Ezra Pound

在我的耳里鸣响！

Rings in my ears!

“伐柯伐柯

"When making an axe handle

其则不远”。

                 the pattern is not far off."

而我对卡伊这样说

And I say this to Kai

“瞧：我们将通过核查

"Look: We'll shape the handle

那我们用来砍它的工作斧柄

By checking the handle

来给战斧柄造型——”

Of the axe we cut with—"

他明白了。我又听见：

And he sees. And I hear it again:

在公元四世纪陆机的

It's in Lu Ji's Wên Fu, fourth century

《文赋》里——序言中

A.D. "Essay on Literature"-—in the

说：“至于

Preface: "In making the handle

操斧

Of an axe

伐柯

By cutting wood with an axe

虽取则不远”。

The model is indeed near at hand."

我的老师陈世骧

My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen

多年前就译出并讲授它

Translated that and taught it years ago

而我明白了：庞德是斧子，

And I see: Pound was an axe,

陈是斧子，我是斧子

Chen was an axe, I am an axe

而我的儿子是斧柄，很快

And my son a handle, soon

再次重新造型，模型

To be shaping again, model

和工具，文化的技艺，

And tool, craft of culture,

我们延续的方式。

How we go on.