(Ruth Stone)
露斯.斯通为美国当代著名女诗人。1915年6月8日出生于弗吉尼亚州。1999年，露斯.斯通的《普通词语》获得美国全国图书评论界奖。2002年，她的第九卷诗集《邻近的星系》荣获第53届被誉为文学奥斯卡奖的美国国家图书奖。同年，露斯.斯通又荣获美国诗人学会2002年年度的华莱士.史蒂文斯奖。华莱士.史蒂文斯奖是美国诗人学会于1994年设立的，奖金15万美金，以纪念诗人史蒂文斯并表彰杰出诗人。前几届获奖者包括默文、里奇、阿西贝利等。
[邻近的星系]
在邻近的星系
情况不会一样。
没有人会丧失
视觉，听力，胆囊。
所有的凯茨科尔斯山峰
都用崭新的游廊环绕装璜。
希特勒的主意不会产生振荡。
当返回到这里时，
他们还在清理着
匿藏于阿根廷的那些
满身皱折老纳粹的衣袋钱囊。
而在邻近的星系，
某些行星会有真正的
蓝天和饮用水。
In the Next Galaxy
In the Next Galaxy
Things will be different.
No one will lose their sight,
their hearing, their gallbladder.
It will be all Catskills with brand
new wrap-around verandas.
The idea of Hitler will not have vibrated yet.
While back here,
they are still cleaning out
pockets of wrinkled
Nazis hiding in Argentina.
But in the next galaxy,
certain planets will have true
blue skies and drinking water.
[那又怎样]
对我而言伟大的真理是被点缀了歇斯底里。
有多少爱因斯坦我们能够忍受？
我跃入不确定原理。
在众多玷污诽谤后，你仅仅用一笑清洗。
你说：哈哈。如果是一次熔毁又怎样 ？
我将立刻写下最后一段诗句 。
So What
For me the great truths are laced with hysteria.
How many Einsteins can we tolerate?
I leap into the uncertainty principle.
After so many smears, you want to wash it off with a laugh.
Ha ha, you say. So what if it's a meltdown?
Last lines to poems I will write immediately
[交易]
言词构成思想。
严厉的暴君,象你监房的
清洗和监护。
他们放牧你的想象
走下叙述关系的弯道
等待用大锻锤
敲打没有认知的
认知要素进入知识。
是,紧固文法,句法的袋子,
聪明从胡言乱语横跨一步,
就是一所舒适的
监狱。镜子的镜子。
而所有在囚禁中说出的
都被锁在了秘密之外。
THE TRADE-OFF
Words make the thoughts.
Severe tyrants, like the scrubbers
and guardians of your cells.
They herd your visions
down the ramp to nexus
waiting with sledge hammer
to knock what is the knowing
without knowing into knowledge.
Yes, the tight bag of grammar,
syntax, the clever sidestep
from babble, is a comfortable
prison. A mirror of the mirror.
And all that is uttered in its chains
is locked out from the secret.
[言词]
威廉斯.斯蒂文斯说，
“一个诗人看世界
如同一个男人看一个女人。”
我从不知道当一个男人
看一个女人时看见什么。
那是个密封的宇宙。
在这泡泡的外表
所有东西都给延展至无限。
沿着覆黑的操场，树似老汉般长着胡子，
象一排瞌睡的灰白胡子的清朝高官。
他们的旧胡子被舞毒蛾作了茧。
所有清朝高官都被捕获于他们的形象中。
一个诗人看世界
如同一个女人看一个男人。
Words
Wallace Stevens says,
"A poet looks at the world
as a man looks at a woman."
I can never know what a man sees
when he looks at a woman.
That is a sealed universe.
On the outside of the bubble
everything is stretched to infinity.
Along the blacktop, trees are bearded as old men,
like rows of nodding gray-bearded mandarins.
Their secondhand beards were spun by female gypsy moths.
All mandarins are trapped in their images.
A poet looks at the world
as a woman looks at a man.
[阅读]
这是当鹳返回的春天。
它们自楼顶腾起。
在性急的冬日下午
你躺在床上
一本图书馆的书贴近你的脸，
你的身体在单人床上，
而鹳腾起
伴一阵床扉抬起的声响。
不看你也知道
一个雇工女孩
正倾身探出在柔柔的户外空气里。
从绿色的木柴
慢慢盘旋起一缕烟，
反射在她的双眼。
她移步走下门外台阶
驱赶家禽心不在焉。
鹳正站着楼顶上。
女孩把手裹在围裙里面。
小小的黄花
已丛生于杂乱的
草丛之间。
她张嘴倾听什么
你听不见。
你的身体熟睡。
她微笑着。
她不知正有一对骑兵在一条
泥泞有车辙的路上行进而来，
而有头脑的人就象搜索者
正沿着书页跺着他们的
长筒皮靴。
READING
It is spring when the storks return.
They rise from storied roofs.
In the quick winter afternoon
you lie on your bed
with a library book close to your face,
your body on a single bed,
and the storks rise
with the sound of a lifted sash.
You know without looking
that a servant girl
is leaning out in the soft foreign air.
A slow spiral of smoke
from green firewood
is reflected in her eyes.
She moves down an outside stair
absently driving the poultry.
The storks are standing on the roof.
The girl wraps her hands in her apron.
Small yellow flowers
have clumped among the tussocks
of coarse grass.
She listens with her mouth open
to something you cannot hear.
Your body is asleep.
She smiles.
She does not know a cavalry is coming
on a mud-rutted road,
and men with minds like ferrets
are stamping their heavy boots
along the pages.
[不期望答案]
给你这封冗长的信，
一个生命对另一个生命意味什么？
我们在我们的袋子里环绕行走，
将它吸进，把它呕出。
然后昆虫们，蜂拥云集
重过世界上所有的动物。
然后在晒衣绳上的食虫鸟，
象撒网者自佛兰芒人的船上倾斜，
当大海被鲱鱼惹怒。
这封长信在我的脑海里，
书法，羽毛似的芦笋。
NOT EXPECTING AN ANSWER
This tedious letter to you,
what is one Life to another?
We walk around inside our bags,
sucking it in, spewing it out.
Then the insects, swarms heavier
than all the animals of the world.
Then the flycatchers on the clothesline,
like seiners leaning from Flemish boats
when the seas were roiled with herring.
This long letter in my mind,
calligraphy, feathery asparagus.
[好意忠告]
这里不是确切的这里
因为两秒钟之前
它被那里经过；
此处它不会再来。
尽管你对此调整适应—
这没有什么，你说，
只是习惯。
我们多么可怜，
因一切都流经过
我们的指间。
“这里”，恶魔之王说，
“吃。这是天堂。”
Good Advice
Here is not exactly here
because it passed by there
two seconds ago;
where it will not come back.
Although you adjust to this—
it's nothing, you say,
just the way it is.
How poor we are,
with all this running
through our fingers.
"Here," says the Devil,
"Eat. It's Paradise."
[总在火车上]
写关于写诗的诗
就象在德克萨斯碾压大包干草。
没什么能停止你除了地平线。
但考虑金属垃圾的铁路边缘；
鸟儿栖息处，几英里的电话线。
什么无辜 象吃草的牛一般？
如你想着它，它就变成片语只言。
垃圾多么快乐；飞起
象蝗虫在收割机前。
尘土魔鬼将它向上旋转；古铜色的糖果封皮，
清洁的塑料方形窗子在一个空气房子上面。
在杂草丛生的去年的席子边缘下
红色和银色的啤酒罐。
一片片被吹过每个地方，
飘飞的纸狂欢
而群鸟构成黑色高抛的图案。
Always on the Train
Writing poems about writing poems
is like rolling bales of hay in Texas.
Nothing but the horizon to stop you.
But consider the railroad's edge of metal trash;
bird perches, miles of telephone wires.
What is so innocent as grazing cattle?
If you think about it, it turns into words.
Trash is so cheerful; flying up
like grasshoppers in front of the reaper.
The dust devil whirls it aloft; bronze candy wrappers,
squares of clear plastic--windows on a house of air.
Below the weedy edge in last year's mat,
red and silver beer cans.
In bits blown equally everywhere,
the gaiety of flying paper
and the black high flung patterns of flocking birds.
---by Ruth Stone
