《知识分子》
他们是一个从不休息的部落。
他们没有坐在午后阳光下，一起吃葡萄。
看云是浪费时间，他们无法忍受。
他们以一种称作“激发思想”的活动打发日子，
好像思想是某种动物，他们用长棍子
伸进笼子戳它，
折磨和刺激它，使它转化成奇怪的行为。
这是他们的信仰。
这，加上透过古老彩色玻璃的阳光。
他们更喜欢树的名字
但不想尝试苹果的味道。
我曾经年轻并且想证明自己，
但是我从他们那里学来的词语改变了我
等我觉察到时，蜕变已经产生了。
我没法说这是不是一件坏事。
不可避免地，你发现你迷失了，真的迷失了；
眼瞎了，真的眼瞎了
愚蠢了，真的很愚蠢；
枯燥了，真的很枯燥；
饥饿了，真的很饥饿；
诸如此类，不胜枚举。
但是你也发现
你会停止不住地一直思考，思考，思考；
自我折磨，并且自言自语。
作者：托尼.侯各兰 译：Phil
选自2019年9月2日《纽约客》杂志
AMONG THE INTELLECTUALS
By Tony Hoagland
They were a restless tribe.
They did not sit in sunlight, eating grapes together in the afternoon.
Cloud-watching among them was considered a disgusting waste of time.
They passed the days in an activity they called “thought-provoking,”
as if thought were an animal, and they used long sticks
to poke through the bars of its cage,
tormenting and arousing thinking into strange behaviors.
This was their religion.
That and the light shining through the stained-glass ancestors.
They preferred the name of the tree
to the taste of the apple.
I was young and I wanted to prove myself,
but the words I learned from them transmuted me.
By the time I noticed, the change had already occurred.
It is impossible to say if this was bad.
Inevitably, you find out you are lost, really lost;
blind, really blind;
stupid, really stupid;
dry, really dry;
hungry, really hungry;
and you go on from there.
But then you also find
you can’t stop thinking, thinking, thinking;
tormenting, and talking to yourself.
—Tony Hoagland （1953 — 2018)
This poem appears in the print edition of the September 2019 issue
网友评论