雷蒙德·卡佛 著
孙仲旭 译

冬天普罗瑟镇外的小山上
有两种田地：有新绿麦苗的，掉落的麦粒
一夜之间从犁过的地里长起，
等一等，
然后又长起，发芽。
野雁很喜欢这种绿麦苗。
我有次也吃了一点，尝尝味道。
还有一直到河边的麦茬地。
这些是失去一切的田地。
夜里，它们努力回想自己的青春，
可是随着其生命陷入幽暗的垄沟，
它们的呼吸又慢又不均匀。
野雁也很喜欢这种碎麦粒，
为了吃到命都不要。
但是一切全被遗忘，几乎一切，
更快而不是更迟，求求您上帝——
父亲，朋友，他们
进入你们的生活又离开，几个女的停留
一阵子，然后会走，田地则
转过身去，消失在雨中。
一切都会走的，除了普罗瑟。
那些夜里开车回来穿过好多英里的麦田——
拐弯时车头灯扫过田地——
普罗瑟，那个镇，我们在山顶小休时看到它灯光灿烂，
汽车加热器开着，我们累到了骨头里，
手指上还有火药味。
我几乎看不清他，我的父亲，他眯着眼睛
隔着驾驶室挡风玻璃看，嘴里说，普罗瑟。
（注：普罗瑟为美国华盛顿州的一个镇）

Prosser

In winter two kinds of fields on the hills
outside Prosser: fields of new green wheat, the slips
rising overnight out of the plowed ground,
and waiting,
and then rising again, and budding.
Geese love this green wheat.
I ate some of it once too, to see.
And wheat stubble-fields that reach to the river.
These are the fields that have lost everything.
At night they try to recall their youth,
but their breathing is slow and irregular as
their life sinks into dark furrows.
Geese love this shattered wheat also.
They will die for it.
But everying is forgotten, nearly everything,
and sooner rather than later, please God –
fathers, friends, they pass
into your life and out again, a few women stay
a while, then go, and the fields
turn their backs, disappear in rain.
Everything goes, but Prosser.
Those nights driving back through miles of wheat fields –
headlamps raking the fields on the curves –
Prosser, that town, shining as we break over hills,
heater rattling, tired through to bone,
the smell of gunpowder on our fingers still:
I can barely see him, my father, squinting
through the windshield of that cab, saying, Prosser.