All the new thinking is about loss.

一切新的思绪都是关于失去的。

In this it resembles all the old thinking.

这一点，类似于一切旧的思绪。

The idea, for example, that each particular erases

这构想，举例来说，具体事物将抹去

the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown-

整体概念那光照的明晰。丑角

faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk

脸庞的啄木鸟探查那亡去白桦

of that black birch is, by his presence,

雕刻的枝桠，因其存在，悲剧

some tragic falling off from a first world

从初始世界那未被分割的光中坠落。

of undivided light. Or the other notion that,

抑或另一种理念，由于这世上

because there is in this world no one thing

没有一件事物能与黑莓的棘刺相对应，

to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds,

一个词即它表达之物的哀歌。

a word is elegy to what it signifies.

昨晚，我们聊至深夜，我朋友的声音里，

We talked about it late last night and in the voice

有一缕纤细的悲戚，近乎埋冤

of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone

的声调。过了一会儿我才明白，

almost querulous. After a while I understood that,

这样谈话，一切都消散了：正义，

talking this way, everything dissolves: justice,

松树，头发，女人，你和我。曾有一位女子

pine, hair, woman, you and I. There was a woman

我和她做爱，仍记得，有时

I made love to and I remembered how, holding

我把她小小的肩膀握在手中，

her small shoulders in my hands sometimes,

我是怎样为在她的存在感到猛烈的讶异，

I felt a violent wonder at her presence

如同对盐的渴欲，思念我童年的河流

like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river

连同那岛屿垂柳，游船上无聊的音乐，

with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat,

我们在浑浊的地方捕捉那叫做南瓜籽的

muddy places where we caught the little orange-silver fish

银橘色小鱼。这几乎与她无关。

called pumpkinseed. It hardly had to do with her.

渴望，我们说，因为欲望载满了

Longing, we say, because desire is full

无尽的距离。我对她来说也必定如此。

of endless distances. I must have been the same to her.

但我深深的记得，她双手掰开面包的样子，

But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread,

她父亲说过伤害她的话，她梦见的

the thing her father said that hurt her, what

东西。总有一些时刻当躯体神圣

she dreamed. There are moments when the body is as numinous

如同词语，日子是美好的肉体永续着。

as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.

多么地柔软，那些午后与傍晚，

Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,

絮语着：黑莓，黑莓，黑莓。

saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.