We lived in a stone farmhouse at the edge of town.

我们住在小镇边缘的一座石头农舍里。

I’d been assigned to process asylum claims

我被分配处理庇护申请，

and you’d come to write about the abandoned homes

而你则来清点关于岛屿内陆

in the island’s interior the government was selling cheap.

政府可以廉价出售的废弃房屋。

A family of barn swallows lived inside our chimney.

一对燕子住在我们的烟囱里。

In the mornings, I drove to the intake centre through fields

清晨，我开车穿过干草和苜蓿田，前往收容中心。

of hay, alfalfa. A crop of sunflowers spanned the tract

沿着小溪，一片向日葵田横跨土地。

along the creek. Most of the men I interviewed were farmers

我采访的大多数男人原本是农民，

back home. They’d left because of drought, sometimes flood or blight.

他们因为干旱，有时是洪水或虫害离开家乡。

Afternoons, the sunflowers bowed in their furrows and the clouds

下午，向日葵在田野里弯腰，云朵像雪花石膏一样白。

turned alabaster. At home, I’d find you lying on the hearth

回到家，我会发现你躺在壁炉旁，

listening to the swallows. We were good to each other,

听着燕子的叫声。我们是彼此的祝福，

so new in our love, with shape to our days.

爱情如此新鲜，日子充满着希望。

The fighting spread and more ships came ashore.

战火蔓延，越来越多的船只靠岸。

Women and children were held in a new location.

妇女和儿童被安置在一个新的地方。

Impractically, I studied Sicilian, not because my grandfather

我不切实际地学习西西里语，并非因为我的祖父会说这种语言，

spoke it, because I wanted to unlearn time.

而是因为我想忘却时间。

I could have looked up the word for sunflower.

我可以查阅向日葵的名字。

I could’ve asked. But it was the not knowing I savored

我可以向别人请教。但我享受的正是这种不知其名的滋味，

on the slow drives through the fields, the pheasants

一个可以救赎我们的词语的可能性，

disappearing into the thick brush along the road.

当我缓慢地开车经过田野，

The possibility of a word that could redeem us.

看着野鸡消失在路边的浓密灌木丛中。

I lay beside you on the cool stone beside the chimney.

我躺在你身边，在烟囱旁的冰冷石头上。

The swallows were out hunting, or looking for hair, grass.

燕子出去觅食，或去寻找毛发和稻草。

Most of the rich who’d bought the empty houses

大多数购买空房子的富人

couldn’t fix them up, you told me, supplies were scarce,

都无法修复它们，你告诉我，物资短缺，

labor hard to find. Night wind carried the smell of the fields

劳动力难以找到。夜风带着田野的气息

through the screenless windows. A flock of egrets

穿过没有纱窗的窗户。一群白鹭

followed the baler, gorging on the insects and frogs

跟随收割机，贪婪地吞食着

the blades exposed and left without shelter.

被刀片夺去庇护所，

暴露在外的昆虫和青蛙。