1

1

我——有兩天沒睡好覺

I-for two days deprived of sleep

內心糾葛。等一下可能會嘔吐

Mind tied in knots. Soon I may have to vomit

火車站一排大理石座椅上

I sit on one of the station's marble benches

我看著小書——裏面有波赫士

Reading a paperback-with Borges inside

——或許他

-maybe in him

和我的行李

Or in my luggage

——可以安慰我

I can take comfort

我的淚淹到一行字上

Tears brim to a line of text

但沒有滴下。它們不輕易

But do not drip. They do not lightly

離開我。我儲存了一整座水庫

Roll from me. I have stored up a whole reservoir

夠用好幾年

Enough to last me for years

最近眼睛壞得可以壞到

My eyes are getting bad these days

壞到

Getting bad enough to understand Borges

等一下火車將經過你居住的

Soon the train will pass by the ocean

海洋。我將看到你。懷中有我

Where you live. I will see you. I am in your heart

把我的骨頭磨出水來

This is squeezing water out of my very bones

我很想回家

Wish I could go back home

但火車站每個人更像親人

But people in the station are more like kinfolk

我想站起來向他們微笑

Wish I could stand up and smile at them

但沒有人打擾我

But nobody bothers me

我秘密地

In my secret way

把翅膀展開

I unfold my wings

2

2

啼哭是一種自救

Weeping is a form of self-rescue

火車開了

The train starts moving

Tears are on the window

淚滴到窗上

Moving down in lines

一行一行

Some will not run readily,

有的不太合作

Like the kind of pain

好像有些疼痛分段

That proceeds in stages

進行

On my own I am more long-suffering

獨自一人時比天空

Than the sky above. The sky sobs out loud

堅強。天空放聲大哭

Without wetting the suitcase

但沒有打濕行李

What is in the suitcase: candle,

行李中有何物：蠟燭

Notebook, Dickinson. The nineteenth century

筆記本。狄菫遜。我和

And myself, pressed in each other's palms

十九世紀。互相捏在手心

3

3

Today would be hard to describe as blessed

今天不能叫做幸福——

Cold damp air, no hunger in the gut

冷。潮濕。肚子不餓

Could be worse. The sky looks dusky, dimmed down

還好。天有點昏暗。暗得

As if retreating to the eighteenth century

像退回到十八世紀

Having no radio. No lightbulb

沒有收音機。燈泡

Chilly drafts left by the night watchman

打更者剛留下幾道霜風

Lantern shaded in red. Wilted almond petals falling

燈籠是紅色。杏花殘落

Kindling set alight, boil a bowlful of thin noodles-

柴火點燃，下了碗細麵條——

Ink stone frozen in the master's study

主人書房裏的硯凍著——

Careless servant sent away

粗心的奴僕被打發

To borrow a fiber-tip pen

到二十一世紀

In the twenty-first century

借一隻快筆——

He stumbled upon a new name

他撿到一個新名字並且

Tried on a pair of jogging shoes

穿上主人不認識的

The master would not recognize

慢跑鞋

4

4

The train is not in the mood to be quiet

火車不肯安靜

We are all drumming up noise for each other

大家互相鼓動噪音

Only one kind of animal is allowed

只允許一種動物

(-other animals prohibited-)

(——其他動物被禁止——)

To fly about outside

在外面飛翔

Over there at a dead end, Ruan Ji stands crying

另一頭的阮籍哭著

Soon he will encounter a train

快和火車相遇了

(-trains like to run on roads that hit dead ends-)

(——火車喜歡走上窮途——)

All of us are acting crazy

大家裝瘋賣傻

Saying there is a tavern up ahead

說前面有一個酒窖

The barmaid comes from the third century

賣酒的娘子來自第三世紀

At times she notices subtle things

某些時候她觀察入微

Pays heed to details of fermentation

特別重視釀酒的細節

You can lie down drunkenly beside her

你可以醉倒在她身旁

(-poets line up along the whole train-)

(——一整排火車都變成詩人——)

She is able to translate each line of your body

她會一一翻譯你身上

As long as it smells of wine

有酒味的詩句

5

5

On the train we keep reading-

我們在火車上讀著——

"Quagmire" is a word I like

「淤泥」這個字我喜歡

Can reality be surmounted?

我們能超越現實嗎

The sound of a washing machine

洗衣機的聲音

Is like "Mantra of the Constricting Headband"

像緊箍咒

What machine do you think is capable

還有一種機器——能消解

Of dissolving contradictions?

矛盾嗎

On the train we must listen

To steel slamming on steel bars

我們必須在火車上

Pounding one against the other-

聽鋼條互相碰撞

傾軋傾軋——

Has the universe gotten too narrow?

How does a thing get buried?

宇宙太狹小了嗎

Put the train out of mind

如何掘地便埋

把火車輕忽

Set out from the very beginning-this nothingness

Has been built up

從最初出發——這個虛無

Into a giant monster

被建構

成龐然大物

Until this sturdily fashioned frame

Comes undone-

這個土木形骸

(One word I like

拆碎之後——

Is "quagmire")

(淤泥這個字——

我喜歡)

6

Today we will go bounding over a ravine

6

(another day spent)

今天將飛躍山溝

(又過了一天)

Leaping past a cliff

(another day spent)

飛躍懸崖

(又過了一天)

Leaping over an abyss

(another day spent)

飛躍深淵

(又過了一天)

End of a century

Just another day

世紀末

Start of a century

是一天

Just another day

世紀初

也是一天

7

Our intimacy: exchange of looks

7

Without words. In the darkness

我們的親密關係：無言的

Unaccustomed breathing

互望。黑暗中

陌生的呼吸

Rain falls on passing window

Glass. Commas splash inside,

雨打在路過的玻璃

Sentences are pasted all over the wall

窗上。逗點跑進來

句子貼滿牆壁

Our passenger train-lit on fire

Slices the dusk apart

列車—著火了

At every stop it grabs up poets

正在切碎黃昏

When the subject is one’s home district

Where does one begin?

從每個不同的站抓來詩人

故鄉是要

A poet of the sixth century

從何說起呢

Mulls over fine points of prosody—

第六世紀的詩人

The countenance wavers

推敲音韻——

But there is cochineal rouge

And an oil lamp

容貌飄搖

As well as—

但是有胭脂

有油燈

Who will go and bring back a few mosquitos

還有——

That mosquito net—

Bring back my grandparents

誰去找回那幾隻蚊子

那頂蚊帳——

8

Sudden evidence of existence: a hermit

找回祖父母

Wearing a headscarf of black—

8

Whorled spruce boughs, or a brushwood door

一種存在的突顯：隱士

In a snowscape, burning

黑色的頭巾——

My heart churning along, hidden

渦狀的雲杉，還是雪中的

In these mountains

柴扉，在燃燒——

Once the sky stops spinning—every leaf

我的心臟滾動，藏匿

Floats down

在這座山中——

Reach out to catch a branch tip

天翻地覆之後——葉子

落盡

A juvenile beast goes rambling—my servant boy

Tremulously clutches a seven-string qin

伸手接住了樹枝——

Follows my steps along the path

幼小的獸漫行——我的

Winding up and down

童僕，脆弱地挾一具琴

A waterfall—my main artery

順著我的腳印，山路

Comes gushing down

蜿蜒

(Noisy fracas of twentieth-century ideologies)

我的主要動脈——瀑布

傾瀉而下

Crossing over this trestle bridge

My donkey brays out loud

(二十世紀各種主義喧嘩——)

A reminder—while I pass through a fourth-century landscape

跨過這座木橋

我的驢子嘶鳴

It brays to let me know:

This is what you can expect of a body

提醒我——正走過第四世紀的山水

What else besides it

牠將說

Could make me icy cold

身體就是這麼回事

And shivery?

還有什麼——

9

能使我冰涼而

Cooking smoke. Heartbeat of a village

顫抖

To speak of eternity shames us

Yet it is found therein

9

炊煙。村子的心跳

The word “wilderness”—this is my

Home district

我們羞於啟齒的永恆

都在其中

I think of Baudelaire and Plath

Dickinson and Tsvetaeva

「野」這個字——是我的

故鄉

I feed a charcoal fire. From red to black

From gray to white—

我想起波特萊爾。普拉斯

狄菫遜。茨維塔耶娃

I watch over a stove

—Task without a reason

我添加炭火。由紅而黑

由灰而白——

10

In a time of hibernation

我守著爐灶——

Father’s seat is empty

——無原因的任務

I turn to the other side

10

To the train that is Mother

冬眠的時候

Her voice is low and grating

父親缺席

The person who coughs

我走到另一邊

Stands between us—

母親是火車

喉嚨低啞

We ride past the ocean

Kinfolk see each other once a year

咳嗽的人

站在中間——

We can’t help but drink liquor, crack melon seeds

Once we pass a certain stop

我們經過海洋

Children begin playing

親人一年見一次面

We need children terribly

不得不喝酒。嗑瓜子

To make offerings. Keep diaries

小孩子在某一站

開始遊戲

Our throats are terribly scratchy

All attention on a single point—

我們非常需要小孩

祭祀。寫日記

Squeeze out some tears

Throw them into the ocean—

我的喉嚨非常癢

所有的注意力集中——

Within the body—

把眼淚擠出

丟進海洋——

身體內部——