祖母的情書

There are no stars tonight

But those of memory.

Yet how much room for memory there is

In the loose girdle of soft rain.

今夜沒有星星

卻有回憶點點。

而流云柔雨中

能容多少回憶?

There is even room enough

For the letters of my mother’s mother,

Elizabeth,

That have been pressed so long

Into a corner of the roof

That they are brown and soft,

And liable to melt as snow.

原來回憶盡在其中，

連我祖母伊麗莎白的信

也還在，

擠塞在屋頂一角

很久很久。

已經(jīng)泛黃、柔軟，

隨時像雪一般融化。

Over the greatness of such space

Steps must be gentle.

It is all hung by an invisible white hair.

It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.

走進這回憶的圣殿

腳步一定要輕柔。

它全系于一根看不見的白發(fā)。

它顫抖著，如樺樹枝在網(wǎng)羅空氣。

And I ask myself:

我問自己：

"Are your fingers long enough to play

Old keys that are but echoes:

Is the silence strong enough

To carry back the music to its source

And back to you again

As though to her?"

“你的手指是否長到能觸及

那古老琴鍵，帶來哪怕只是回音點點：

四周的靜寂是否強大到

能把音樂送至其源頭

再次傳回給你

如同傳給她一般?”

Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand

Through much of what she would not understand;

And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof

With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

而我愿拉著我祖母的手

一起穿越她難以理解的種種;

這一路我跌跌撞撞。而雨繼續(xù)敲打著屋頂，

發(fā)出輕柔憐憫的笑聲。