hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.
Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?
But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
--A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
--And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:
"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?
Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"
这里有太多的瀑布，拥挤的溪流
奔流向海
许许多多的云层压向山顶
迫使它们慢慢流向山的边缘
变成了我们眼中的瀑布
――要是这些条纹 这些里许长的、亮闪闪的裂痕
现在还不是瀑布的话
那么也许几年，或很多年后
它们就将是
可如果溪流和云层不停的移动、旅行
那山峦看起来就像倾覆的船体
挂满了潮湿的粘泥和甲殼
想想那漫长的回家的路
我们难道不该呆在家里――在想像中旅行到这儿么？
今天我们应该在哪？
在一个古怪至极的剧场
看着一群陌生人的表演，这样做对么？
只要一息尚存我们就注定要奔波不定
这样的想法是不是太过幼稚？
世界上最小的绿色蜂鸟？
去盯住费解的古老石墙
无论怎么瞧
都是费解的 冥顽的
然后立马就开心了？而且一直保持心情愉快？
哦，我们是否必须拥有自己的梦想
并去实现它们？
我们是否有足够的空间
能放下折叠起来的落日 趁它还温暖的时候？
当然 那会是一种遗憾
没见过路两旁的那些树木
它们有一种夸张的美丽
没看到树木们的身姿
像童话剧中的贵族 穿着粉色的礼服
――没有不得不停车加气 然后听到
忧郁的 两个音节的 木头曲调
那是不成对的一双木屐
踢沥趿拉的走过
沾满油渍的加油站的地板
（在另一个国家每双木屐都被测试过
保证它们有相同的音高）
――遗憾没能听到
胖胖的棕色小鸟的不那么纯朴的音乐
在有着三座塔楼 五个银质十字架的
巴洛克风格的竹子的耶稣堂里
小鸟站在破旧的油泵上歌唱
――是的，遗憾没有去沉思
模糊不清地 毫无结果地沉思
那存在了几个世纪的内在联系
在那天然的木拖鞋
那精挑细选的
梦幻般木拖鞋
和那精挑细选的
梦幻般木鸟笼之间的联系
――没有去研究陈年旧事
那些关于鸟笼上弱不禁风的书法的历史
――也没有不得不听着雨声
就像听着政治家的演说
两个小时的喋喋不休
接着是惜字如金般的沉默
然后旅行者拿出了笔记本，写道：
“是不是因为我们缺乏想像力
所以才去到那想象之地 而不是呆在家里？
或者帕斯卡所说（注1）安静地坐在自己房间
也并非完全正确
大陆、城市、国家、社会：
这些选择从不充分和自由
不是这儿就是那儿…..不。是否甭管家在何方，
我们还不如就呆在家里？”
注1：
Pascal说: All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.
人们的苦难都是由于没法安静地单独坐在房间里。
Elizabeth Bishop，1911－1979，20世纪美国最重要和最杰出的诗人之一。这个链接有比较详细的中文介绍：http://www.wretch.cc/blog/kamadevas/1067369
