秋叶凋零，寒冬来临前翻译一首Simon Armitage的《The Present》

Simon Robert Armitage 英国著名诗人，剧作家和小说家，2019年被任命为英国桂冠诗人。

秋叶凋零，寒冬将至，白雪飘飘的冰冷世界在疫情的笼罩下将会更显凛冽，在这个特别的冬日世界里，翻译这首《The Present》希望寒冷的世界里依然有着那份来自大自然馈赠的温馨礼物，它虽不能褪去这寒冷，但它能够让欣赏它的人感受到一种美的存在，一种诗意流露出的温情脉脉。

这份礼物

我从古老种植园里的落叶松中穿过

换季后的它们，绿色都已褪去，毫无生机

看起来就如同，被虫蛀了的皮毛包裹着的寡居公主

刚刚从荒野中踉跄走出来

那五根铁棍支起的门已锈迹斑斑躺在泥潭里

让这片荒野从它面前逃离

这年的冬天来得有点晚，也不怎么寒冷

薄薄的雪只半淹过路边的小水坑，

太阳依旧笼罩着大地

脚下的污泥一直延伸到山脊

我来这里并未找到想找的

除了在山谷上头发现了一个豁口

在那里我找到了一块潮湿，向北边耸立的石头

它收集了足够的寒风

水在那里冻了起来，变成了一串串垂冰

曾经，我从悬挂在瀑布上那晶莹剔透的垂冰中

连根折断了一根六英尺长的垂冰

放下它，把一端直立起来

盯着看里面，看那被锁在晶莹深处的冰河时代

看那奇异镜头里远处的山丘

这些冰脆弱，胆怯而稀有

它们在我戴着手套的拳心中哭泣，我要把它们带回家

我想让我的女儿品尝一下冰川的味道

感受在每个极点上，被钻石一样的寒冷所锁住的世界

但当我打开双手时

却发现没什么能给她，我的手中已然空空如也

艾笛.L 2020.10.25 译

The Present

Simon Robert Armitage

I shove up through the old plantation – larch

out of season, drab, drained of all greenness,

widowed princesses in moth-eaten furs –

and stumble out on the lap of the moor.

Rotten and rusted, a five-bar gate

lies felled in the mud, letting the fields escape.

Winter is late and light this year, thin snow

half puddled, sun still trapped in the earth,

sludge underfoot all the way to the ridge.

And none of the stuff that I came here to find,

except in a high nick at the valley head

where a wet, north-facing lintel of rock

has cornered and cupped enough of the wind

for running water to freeze. Icicles:

once, I un-rooted some six-foot tusk

from the waterfall's crystallised overhang,

lowered it down and stood it on end, then stared

at an ice-age locked in its glassy depths,

at far hills bottled in its weird lens.

These are brittle and timid and rare, and weep

in my gloved fist as I ferry them home.

I'd wanted to offer my daughter

a taste of the glacier, a sense of the world

being pinned in place by a diamond-like cold

at each pole. But opening up my hand

there's nothing to pass on, nothing to hold.