申明

【美】唐纳德·霍尔      陈子弘 译

变老就会失去一切。
老了，每个人心知肚明。
就算是我们还年轻，
老爷子过世时，
我们也就瞧一眼、点点头。
然后我们在仲夏愚蠢但还满意的
水塘上年年争吵。一开始倒也
和睦的婚姻在岸边开裂
裂成碎片，一个从学校来的朋友
在砾石遍地的河滩感冒了。
假如新欢承载着我们
走过中年，我们的老婆
会死在最壮怀最美好的时候。
新女友来来去去。都走了。
那个声称她临时
来一哈的俏冤家
的确临时。那大胆女人
中年对阵我们这些老年人，
深陷于她无力承受的焦虑。
还有个几十年的朋友用乌糟糟
三十年的话疏离他自己。
让我们在池塘边的泥底窒息
并断言这对失去一切
很对路很有感觉。

英文原文：

Affirmation

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond’s edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.

                                    Donald Hall