论难度

【美】乔丽·格雷厄姆　陈子弘 译

他们想要知道自己心中有谁，
从高处看下去，看向半枯半荣的
树林，四月末，定不下是否应该
回头。
树林不是他们的家。
荣景也不是他们的家。不管背后有
什么，都不是。有点什么浮在
他们周围的空气中，
仿佛那就是
白天淹没的地方，
哭喊的边缘地带，比如那裂缝，闪着光。
现在他伸出手。
她是否有个身形可以填满的空洞？
他们的太阳穴里嗡嗡作响，像在说
“我做了什么？”——但还不是问题，真还
不是从嗓子里溜出来像咸涩泡沫漂浮在
虚空——
哦，你们会明白，你们俩，在那个
藤蔓生发处，你们会明白，
你们推理所趋之地，那意义的漂浮物
被放下之地，
而海岸
岸稳。他们在想，我们一定睡了一会儿，
那变了的是什么？他们在想
灌木多低矮嘛，最终，在等待中
选择的可能性好有
局限哦（是吧）。更像明亮的分叉
总在阴影中戛然止于这片或那片，
打破惯性然后止步，
最终劈开水流成形，而后再
驻足——
如果你问他们，他们最先在哪里找到彼此
身体的边界，幸福
藏在哪里，他们会透过绿意中的缝隙
抬头看你俯视的地方。
他们想搞懂——（左边）关闭的教堂中沉默的
　　圣像，
（右边）视野里沉默的远方——
把自己如何交出去，
所以他们现在抬头看，
所以他们现在触碰彼此（让你
关注），所以他们想知道这
让你回想起什么，
抬头，互相触及让你看见，让你借此看见，
　　长眠
伊始，相似的长眠，
为了永生开始，更深地触及彼此，就在你们
　　之间，
让短而有力的青草托起他们，供你细数，
为场景涂上可信的颜色，
让千万朵单独的花累加起来
几乎（更深地触及她）挡住你对他们的视线——
当你移开目光，
他们会是谁，亲爱的上帝，会是什么？

诗人简介：乔丽·格雷厄姆（Jorie Graham，1950年5月9日－），美国当代著名诗人、哈佛大学教授，以其深刻而复杂的诗歌风格闻名。她出生于纽约，在意大利和法国长大，深受欧洲文化影响。格雷厄姆的诗作探索自然、历史、哲学及人类经验，常以细腻的观察和多层次的语言结构呈现，融合个人与普世主题。她的作品包括《侵蚀》（1983）、《物质主义》（1993）等，曾获普利策诗歌奖（1996）、麦克阿瑟天才奖等殊荣。她擅长用诗歌捕捉时间的流动与存在的矛盾，被誉为“当代诗歌的立法者”。格雷厄姆的创作不仅展现语言的美感，还挑战读者对世界与自我的认知，是美国现代诗歌的重要声音。

JORIE GRAHAM

On Difficulty

It's that they want to know whose they are,
seen from above in the half burnt-out half blossomed-out
woods, late April, unsure as to whether to
turn back.
The woods are not their home.
The blossoming is not their home. Whatever's back there
is not. Something floats in the air all round them
as if it were the place
where the day drowns,
and the place at the edge of cries, for instance, that fissure, gleams.
Now he's holding his hand out.
Is there a hollow she's the shape of?
And in their temples a thrumming like
what-have-I-done?—but not yet a question, really, not
yet what slips free of the voice to float like a brackish foam
on emptiness—
Oh you will come to it, you two down there
where the vines begin, you will come to it,
the thing towards which you reason, the place where the flotsam
of the meanings is put down
and the shore
holds. They're thinking we must have slept a while,
what is it has changed? They're thinking
how low the bushes are, after all, how finite
the options one finds in the
waiting (after all). More like the branchings of whiteness
always stopping short into this shade or that,
breaking inertia then stopping,
breaking the current at last into shape but then
stopping—
If you asked them, where they first find the edges of each other's
       bodies, where
happiness resides they'd look up through the gap
in the greenery you're looking down through.
What they want to know—the icons silent in the shut church (to
       the left),
the distance silent in the view (to the right)—
is how to give themselves away,
which is why they look up now,
which is why they'll touch each other now (for your
looking), which is why they want to know what this
reminds you of
looking up, reaching each other for you to see, for you to see by,
        the long sleep
beginning, the long sleep of resemblance,
touching each other further for you that Eternity begin, there,
        between you,
letting the short jabs of grass hold them up for you to count by,
to color the scene into the believable by,
letting the thousands of individual blossoms add up
and almost (touching her further) block your view of them—
When you look away
who will they be dear god and what?

                      from The End of Beauty