W. S. Merwin (1927-2019) was a very prolific American poet who served as the 17th US Poet Laureate, and his many awards include Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (twice), National Book Award, and the Tanning Prize, etc.

W. S. 默温（1927-2019）是一位非常多产的诗人，17届美国桂冠诗人。他所获奖项包括普利策诗歌奖（两次）、国家图书奖以及美国诗歌协会的坦宁奖等。

得一忘二，60后诗人、译者。他以中英文写诗，出版了多部翻译作品和诗集，诗作发表于中国大陆、台湾、新加坡以及美国等杂志与文选，曾获奖并多次受邀出席国际诗歌节。他目前定居新加坡，在大学任教。

Fan Jinghua is a bilingual poet and translator. His poems have been published in literary magazines and anthologies in Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and USA. He has been invited to several international poetry festivals and has read his poems in different occasions, and he has been awarded prizes for his poems and translations. Jinghua works as a university lecturer and lives in Singapore.

For A Coming Extinction

为正在降临的灭绝而作

Gray whale
Now that we are sending you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours

When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And fore-ordaining as stars
Our sacrifices

Join your word to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important
			

灰鲸
既然我们要送你去终点
见那大神
那么告诉他
说尾随你的我们，造出了宽恕一词
却什么都不宽恕

我这样写，权当你能明白
而我也能说出
人必须假装垂死的周遭中
还有点什么
当你离去，留下海水点着头迈着大步
腹中没了你
告诉大神，我们原本就不是
在同一天所造

恐慌感将如回声般逐渐销弱
蜿蜒于你腹内的山峦
我们听不到
而那感觉自有出路
留下的是未来的
以及我们的
死灭

当你再不能重见天日
幼鲸试晒着日光
想着你在那幽暗花园和庭院
会发现什么
海牛、巨海雀、大猩猩
不可替代的主人们摆开了我们献上的
难以数计、星辰般天授的
祭品

把你的话带进他们的话里
告诉他
我们才真的很重要
			

Odysseus

奥德修斯

Always the setting forth was the same,
Same sea, same dangers waiting for him
As though he had got nowhere but older.
Behind him on the receding shore
The identical reproaches, and somewhere
Out before him, the unraveling patience
He was wedded to. There were the islands
Each with its woman and twining welcome
To be navigated, and one to call “home.”
The knowledge of all that he betrayed
Grew till it was the same whether he stayed
Or went. Therefore he went. And what wonder
If sometimes he could not remember
Which was the one who wished on his departure
Perils that he could never sail through,
And which, improbable, remote, and true,
Was the one he kept sailing home to?
			

从来，启程都是一样的，
一样的海，一样的危险等着他，
除了更老，他似乎哪儿也到达不了。
身后，渐退渐远的海滩上，责难
也一模一样，而在他面前某处
有他无法拆散的耐性，他注定与它
相守一生。岛屿那么多，每一座
都有一个女人，以及柔肠百结的欢迎，
有待他去探索，其中一座将称之为“家”。
他背叛了的一切，他越来越了解，
到头来，无论离去还是留下，都没有
差别。所以他离去。这算不算奇怪，
假若他有时也不记得谁是谁非？
是哪一个在他出发时暗中希望
他遭遇永远无法驶过的危险，
又是哪一位，无望、遥远、但真心，
令他一直扬帆而来，视作归家？

　　　　　　　　　　选自《炉中醉汉》1960年
			

Air

气

Naturally it is night.
Under the overturned lute with its
One string I am going my way
Which has a strange sound.

This way the dust, that way the dust.
I listen to both sides
But I keep right on.
I remember the leaves sitting in judgment
And then winter.

I remember the rain with its bundle of roads.
The rain taking all its roads.
Nowhere.

Young as I am, old as I am,
I forget tomorrow, the blind man.
I forget the life among the buried windows.
The eyes in the curtains.
The wall
Growing through the immortelles.
I forget silence
The owner of the smile.

This must be what I wanted to be doing,
Walking at night between the two deserts,
Singing.

　　　　　　　From The Moving Target (1963)
			

当然是夜晚。
这反着放的鲁特琴，一根弦，
我在其下自行其道，
奇怪的响声。

这样是尘，那样也是尘。
我两边都聆听，
但继续直走。
叶子心怀成见地坐着，我记着了，
接着是冬天。

雨以及它兜起的路，我记着了。
雨兜起它所有的路，
并无去处。

年轻是我，年迈亦是我。

我忘了明天，这瞎了眼的。
我忘了那隐于窗户之间的人生，那被埋葬的窗户，
忘了窗帘里的眼睛、
从腊菊花丛穿出来的
墙壁，
忘了沉默，
它占有着微笑。

这肯定是我曾想要做的事，
夜行于两片沙漠之间，
吟唱。

　　　　　　　　选自《移动标靶》（1965年）
			

Late Spring

暮春

Coming into the high room again after years 
after oceans and shadows of hills and the sounds of lies 
after losses and feet on stairs 

after looking and mistakes and forgetting 
turning there thinking to find
no one except those I knew
finally I saw you
sitting in white
already waiting

you of whom I had heard
with my own ears since the beginning
for whom more than once
I had opened the door
believing you were not far

　　　　　　　　from The Rain in the Trees (1988)
			

再次登上那间高层房，在多年之后
在海洋与憧憧山峦与谎言喧哗之后
在一再丧失与双脚落在楼梯之后

后于看见与错误以及忘记
转向那儿想找到
除了我知道的人之间无一人在那儿
直到最终我看到你
一身白衣静坐
已在等待

你，我亲耳
从一开始就已听到
你，我不止一次
为你洞门大开
相信你就在近处

　　　　选自《树中的雨》（1988年）