“Words to that Effect” by John Ashbery, Translated by bq
〈大意如此〉 約翰.阿什貝利/不清試譯
The drive down was smooth
but after we arrived things started to go haywire,
first one thing and then another. The days
scudded past like tumbleweed, slow then fast,
then slow again. The sky was sweet and plain.
You remember how still it was then,
a season putting its arms into a coat and staying unwrapped
for a long, a little time.
這一趟車程總算是順利的
直到我們抵達事情便開始如麻的混亂,
一件事緊接另一件。日子
飛奔如風滾草,且慢且快
又慢下來。天空是甜蜜的和平樸的。
你記得當時它是如何靜態的,
季節把手臂伸進外套,保持攤開的狀態
一段很長、很少的時間。
It was during the week we talked about deforestation.
How sad that everything has to change,
yet what a relief, too! Otherwise we'd only have
looking forward to look forward to.
The moment would be a bud
that never filled, only persevered
in a static trance, before it came to be no more.
那個星期我們談起森林濫伐。
無奈的是一切都在變更,
然而也是一種解放吧!否則我們只能
期望更多的期望。
這刻仿似一枚煙頭
從未填菸,僅僅緊持
到靜止的發呆中,於永遠不再之前。
We'd walked a little way in our shoes.
I was sure you'd remember how it had been
the other time, before the messenger came to your door
and seemed to want to peer in and size up the place.
So each evening became a forbidden morning
of thunder and curdled milk, though the invoices
got forwarded and birds settled on the periphery.
我們穿著鞋子走一點路。
我敢肯定你依然記起
那次,信差來到你戶門之前
仿佛希望窺探和估算這個地方。
這麼每一個夜晚將成為充滿雷聲和凝乳
的幽禁早晨,儘管發票
被發送了而一群鳥在外圍留宿。
註:翻譯作品未獲得原創作者同意發表。本人在翻譯此文時,無法聯絡到詩人 John Ashbery(1927﹣)