酷我-北美枫

[黄崇超]

The Skunk
By Seamus Heaney

Up, black, striped and damasked like the chasuble
At a funeral mass, the skunk’s tail
Paraded the skunk. Night after night
I expected her like a visitor.

The refrigerator whinnied into silence.
My desk light softend beyond the verandah.
Small oranges loomed in the orange tree.
I began to be tense as a voyeur.

After eleven years I was composing
Love-letters again, broaching the word “wife”
Like a stored cask, as if its slender vowel
Had mutated into the night earth and air

Of California. The beautiful, useless
Tang of eucalyptus spelt your absence.
The aftermath of a mouthful of wine
Was like inhaling you off a cold pillow.

And there she was, the intent and glamorous
Ordinary, mysterious skunk,
Mythologized, demythologized,
Snuffing the boards five feet beyond me.

It all came back to me last night, stirred
By the sootfall of your thing at bedtime,
Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer
For the black plunge-line nightdress.


(from THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE )
_________________
河流在流淌，乌鸫必定是在飞翔。
http://hexun.com/ahchaos/default.html

[[游向高原的鱼]]

The Skunk
By Seamus Heaney

Up, black, striped and damasked like the chasuble
At a funeral mass, the skunk’s tail
Paraded the skunk. Night after night
I expected her like a visitor.

The refrigerator whinnied into silence.
My desk light softend beyond the verandah.
Small oranges loomed in the orange tree.
I began to be tense as a voyeur.

After eleven years I was composing
Love-letters again, broaching the word “wife”
Like a stored cask, as if its slender vowel
Had mutated into the night earth and air

Of California. The beautiful, useless
Tang of eucalyptus spelt your absence.
The aftermath of a mouthful of wine
Was like inhaling you off a cold pillow.

And there she was, the intent and glamorous
Ordinary, mysterious skunk,
Mythologized, demythologized,
Snuffing the boards five feet beyond me.

It all came back to me last night, stirred
By the sootfall of your thing at bedtime,
Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer
For the black plunge-line nightdress.


(from THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE )
_________________
河流在流淌，乌鸫必定是在飞翔。
http://hexun.com/ahchaos/default.html

[星子]

thanks for post.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

thanks for post.
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