沃尔科特《黑八月》
沃尔科特是擅用意象的大师。八月多雨，他形容为“肿胀的天”，说太阳姐妹在她的黄房间里“抱窝不出”。他说打雷，“像一摞菜盘从天上摔下来”。雨后初晴，天地间花草树木一片清亮，他说太阳“用你体谅的眼/和繁花的额分开雨的珠帘”。在前面繁富的意象铺排之后，结尾突然变得异常质朴：“我将已学会爱黑暗日子同光明日子一样，/爱黑的雨白的山，/而从前我只爱我的幸福和你。”
So much rain， so much life like the swollen sky
of this black August. My sister, the sun,
broods in her yellow room and won't come out.
Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume
like a kettle, rivers overrun;still,
she will not rise and turn off the rain.
She's in her room, fondling old things,
my poems, turning her album. Even if thunder falls
like a crash of plates from the sky,
Don't you konw I love you but am hopeless
at fixing the rain? But I am learning slowly
to love the dark days, the steaming hills,
the air with gossiping mosquitoes,
and to sip the medicine of bitterness,
so that when you emerge, my sister,
parting the beads of the rain,
with your forehead of flowers and eyes of forgiveness,
all will not be as it was, but it will be true
(you see they will not let me love
as I want), because,my sister, then
I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones,
the black rain, the white hills, when once
I loved only my happiness and you.
from Collected Poems 1948-1984
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