Snow slabs in the dicey cedar hedge,
雪厚厚地涂在岌岌可危的雪松树篱丶
robins and winter wrens thickly, or this as much as possible,
知更鸟和冬天鹪鹩上，或尽可能如此，
inside, taking stick from the cold.
里面，受寒冷责备。
One wren looks to plant a nest in the shed’s roof
一只鹪鹩看来是想在小屋顶筑巢，
moves around the complete structure below the overhang,
在飞檐下绕着这个完整的结构移动，
feet pinging on the anti-raccoon wire.
双脚蹬在防浣熊的电线上。
Moan of the weather. What does it really mean?
天气的呻吟。这究意是什么意思？
The shed backs into a half acre of maples and fir,
小屋退入半英亩枫树和枞树，
which joins an oak sprawl beside a cliff at the west side --
那半亩枫树和枞树又加入一座圆角形山西面一道悬崖
my body -- of a rounded horn mountain.
──我的身体──旁边一大片杂乱的橡树。
In summer there’s a galactic gold spread of lichen on the cliff stone
夏天，悬崖石上有地衣那星系似的金色覆盖物，
behind a bungy cluster of blackberries.
在一簇竹尖钉似的黑草莓背后。
The pear tree at the window facing the mountain – one May a rubythroated
窗前的株犁树面向那座山──某个五月，一只红喉的
hummingbird sat weeks on two bean-sized eggs
蜂鸟连续几星期蹲在两个豆粒大的蛋上，
in a moss and succulent nest, which stood at eyeheight;
在一个苔藓和肉质的巢里，巢位于齐眉高的地方；
she was fierce and resolute,
她猛烈而果断，
不亚于或者也许超过在米兰甚至后来
equal to or perhaps exceeding Augustine in Milan
在希波的奥古斯汀，他421年在希波给君士坦丁堡牧首
and even later in Hippo from which he writes to Atticus, patriarch of Constantinople,
阿蒂库斯写信，三次明确谈到性爱，“那是他沉思了二十多年的问题，”
thrice in 421, definitively on sexuality, “on which he had meditated for over two decades”
但没有收到回音。如今他六十多岁，满是尘土，埋在这块农村石头里。
and hears nothing. Dusty, now in his sixties, buried in the rural stone.
阿蒂库斯听到各种有关他已死去的故事
Atticus holds stories he is dead
并推测这是真的。
he reasons true.
风在山上的岩石下游泳，
顺流而下，每阵风都有自己的面孔。
Winds swim under rock on the mountain,
一种呼吸的雄壮，羽毛般飘动。
flowing down, each with its own face.
我七个骷髅的名字
A muscularity of breath, feathering.
分辨出这些，这些面孔的
My seven-skeletoned name
味道，它们每个都既是一种芬芳
makes out the smell of these,
又是一个名字。所以我走向一阵阵风，
these faces which are each a scent
空荡荡，没错，但没给它们带来什么来自坟墓的对接机制。
and also a name. So I come toward the winds,
empty, yes, but with no disinterable docking mechanism for them.
但他没死，反而是在希波坐着，
希波后来叫做安纳巴，漂亮又土气，在“我们的海”受冷落的一边，
离开他吧。这里大概不会有什么东西。
But he is not dead. Rather he sits in Hippo,
马克思后来将想出那个小周转轮系，
later called Annaba, which is pretty and hick on the wrong side of mare nostrum
在整件事情上运作。历史
and which will wait six hundred years for thonged Italian and French tourists
向前滚动
to come and breathe,
在履带上，履带是河流，也许是马利亚的河流系统，
just as Mousterians waited in this same cove for homo sapiens to claim
这些无颜色的河流，世界的硷性淋巴，理念的
their beach space with geometrical thought. He waits for his letter, barely caught in the imperial swell,
身体。
his foot nevertheless on the Donatist neck,
Rome north and above him glittering like a universal Turing machine
in which anything could happen.
题解：此诗有两个兴趣点──作者在另一首诗《鹿地小屋》中提到的他房子背后的小屋和某一年栖息在小屋附 近丶就在小屋窗外的蜂鸟；以及希波的奥古斯汀，也即那位写《忏悔录》的早期基督教哲学家，他曾在米兰丶后来在北非短暂居住过。最后一节诗省思一种历史哲 学，既不是黑格尔式的，也不是马克思主义的，也不是奥古斯汀式的，而是多少有点儿像是三者的零零碎碎的拼凑。也许算是一种喜剧式的解读吧。据作者解释，马 利亚是指圣母马利亚；“七副骨骼的名字”是一个非常复杂和神秘的名字，它深藏于一个人的深处，位于多层较不重要的名字丶性命丶身份之下，因而是一个非常强 大而纯粹的直觉源头；“我们的海”原文为拉丁文，指地中海。
Leave him. Roughly nothing will come of this.
Marx, later will work out the small epicyclic gear system
operating the whole affair. History
rolls forward
on treads which are rivers, the river-system perhaps of Mary,
these rivers which are the colourless, alkaline lymph of the world, idea’s
body.