假期

【美】温德尔·贝里     陈子弘 译

有个男人一度把假期拍成电影。
他乘着船沿水道一路顺流而动
取景器朝眼睛靠拢，拍下
碧流汹涌波澜的动人画面
流线型的时髦船体在飞驰
他的假期行将完结。他把
假期装进摄像机，装进去，
想要永久保存：大河、那些树丛、
天空、光线、高歌猛进的船首
他站在后面手扶着镜头
记录下此刻一如此刻他还在受用
故而拍下后他还可以继续
享有。它会一直在那儿。就算
关掉开关，仍然还在那儿。但他
却不会在其中，永远也不会在其中。

【诗人简介】温德尔·贝里（Wendell Erdman Berry， 1934-）美国小说家、诗人、散文家、环保活动家、文化批评家。他是南方作家联谊会理事、国家人文奖章获得者和2012年杰斐逊讲座主讲人。他也是2013年美国艺术与科学学院院士。贝瑞被评为2013年理查德·霍尔布鲁克杰出成就奖的获得者。2015年1月28日,他成为第一位进入肯塔基州作家名人堂的在世作家。目前贝里已出版数十部小说、诗集、非虚构文学文集等。

THE VACATION

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch, there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.

                      Wendell Berry