With The Face

With The Face

by Laura Riding (1901-1991)

With the face goes a mirror

As with the mind a world.

Likeness tells the doubting eye

That strangeness is not strange.

At an early hour and knowledge

Identity not yet familiar

Looks back upon itself from later,

And seems itself.

To-day seems now.

With reality-to-be goes time.

With the mind goes a world.

With the heart goes a weather.

With the face goes a mirror

As with the body a fear.

Young self goes staring to the wall

Where dumb futurity speaks calm,

And between then and then

Forebeing grows of age.

The mirror mixes with the eye.

Soon will it be the very eye.

Soon will the eye that was

The very mirror be.

Death, the final image, will shine

Transparently not otherwise

Than as the dark sun described

With such faint brightnesses.

---

With The Face

Laura Riding Jackson  [1901-1991] an American poet, novelist, essayist and short-story writer.  She was born Laura Reichenthal on 16th Jan 1901 in New York to a family of Austrian immigrants, and educated at Cornell University, where she began to write poetry.

---

译/小虾

面容与......

如一面镜子与人的面容形影相随

一个世界和人的思想也左右相伴

形似之处告诉质疑的眼睛

陌生和迥异并不奇怪

在稚嫩的幼年

个性戴着不为熟知的面具

多年之后回望过去

面具后面的自己, 却依稀可见

今天似乎就是现实

而时间会带来明天的现实

一个世界总是和人的思想为伴

而天气与一颗心成双成对

同面容形影相随的是一面镜子

而与身体紧紧相依的则是恐惧

年轻的自己双眼紧盯着墙壁

无语的未来在那里演绎平静和安宁

期间

生命的年轮一环环增加

后来, 镜子和眼睛交错混淆

分不清哪个是眼睛, 哪个是镜子

不久, 镜子就会成为眼睛

不久, 那眼睛就是那镜子

死亡, 这最后的影象

将会发出透明的光

就像黑太阳, 发出微弱的亮光

With The Face