他山之石 | 诗以达意：诗歌的治愈力（三）
栏目说
“ 他山之石，为「是光」新的固定栏目。通过定期翻译国外关于现代诗歌的朗读、创作、活动的文章，实现诗歌更大程度上的探索和借鉴推广。 ”
诗以达意：诗歌的治愈力
罗伯特·卡罗尔博士（Dr.Robert Carrol)
加州大学洛杉矶分校精神病学专业
If the group's focus is on a particular theme, for example, cancer, I might use poems that relate directly to the illness. My poem "Eileen" is an account of an incident related to me by a friend that occurred between a mother and her daughter. In "Eileen" I wanted to capture the experience of a healing transformation and ritual passage between a mother and her daughter.
如果团体的关注焦点有一个明确的主题，比如，癌症，我就可能采用直接描写疾病的诗歌。我自己的诗作《艾琳》是朋友讲给我的一件发生在一个母亲和她的女儿之间的事情。在《艾琳》这首诗里，我想要抓住这个发生在母女之间的拥有治愈力的转变和仪式感。
When poems such as "Eileen" is read to a group, people experience a resonance with their own stories in ways they may have never been put into words before. The poems need not to be about illness specifically, but might otherwise embody themes that confronts the patients.
像《艾琳》这样的作品是在团体中朗读的，人们以一种自己可能从未诉说和记录过的方式去体验它们与自己经历之间的共鸣。所选的作品不一定都是具体描写疾病的，但其他有些主题可能会刺激到患者。
Twelve years ago, I myself was going through personally difficult times. One of my patients, a 32-year-old woman who was a wife and mother of a 2-year-old daughter, died. At the same time my father was beginning his terminal decline from diabetic multisystem failure, and a friend of mine was dying from a cancer that had metastasized to her brain. In addition, I had recently had reconstructive knee surgery to repair torn ligaments, following which I was disabled for months.
十二年前，我自己有过一段非常痛苦的经历。我的一位患者——一个32岁的女性，既是妻子，也是一个2岁孩子的母亲——去世了。也是在同一时间，我的父亲开始出现糖尿病引起的多系统器官衰竭的病状，健康状况极度恶化，我还有一个朋友，当时她的癌症扩散到了脑部，已经处于病危状态。雪上加霜的是，我自己也在那段时间刚刚经历了膝关节重建手术以修复撕裂的韧带，手术后有几个月的时间都行动困难。
I had never written much before except a few poems in earlier times of crisis. I developed ways of writing as my own healing practice, and I listened to the voices of other poets and writers doing the same.
在那之前，即便是生活中陷入危机，我也从没有像那段时间里写过那样多的作品。我摸索出了一些写作的方法作为我自己的治疗手段，也听了很多其他有类似经历的诗人、作家的作品朗读。
Our voices are saturated with who we are, embodied in the rhythms, tonal variations, associations, images and other somato-sensory metaphors in addition to the content meaning of the words. Our voices are embodiments of ourselves, whether written or spoken. It is in times of extremity that we long to find words or hear another human voice letting us know we are not alone.
我们说话的声音中满溢着关于“我是谁”的符号，在节奏韵律中，在语调变化中，在联想、意象和其他身体器官隐喻中，在文字的内容意义中。无论是书面写作还是口头诉说，我们的声音就是我们的化身。正是在极端时刻，我们才更渴望找到合适的词语进行表达或是渴望听到另一个人的声音，好让自己知道我们并不孤单。
The poems "MeFather", and "What Waiting is", were written during this period. They represent a progression of my experience: from a dreamed awareness of my father's death as he bagan his terminal decline, through the realization of what the three year process had meant to me, to overwhelming grief in the afternoon of losing both my father and my friend, and, finally, an attempt to come to some resolution.
《我，父亲》和《等待是...》创作于那段困难时期。它们代表了我个人体验的进展：由父亲重病晚期健康恶化时我在梦里感知到他的死亡开始，经过自己认识这三年过程之于我的意义，到同时失去父亲和朋友之后承受的巨大的悲痛，直到最后终于开始尝试寻找解决的办法。
MeFather
I rose in his wake.
A dream crossed my eyes---
My father lying still in his tub.
I throw my arms around his yelling
Daddy, wake up!
Bubbles are bursting everywhere.
《我，父亲》
在为他守灵时我站起身来。
一个梦从我眼前掠过——
我的父亲一动不动地躺在浴缸里。
我张开双臂抱住他大声叫着
爸爸，快醒醒！
到处都是破碎的泡沫。
What Waiting is
We sit on the beach in the hospital corridor
next to the cafeteria, and we wait.
You know what waiting is.
If you know anything,
you know what waiting is.
《等待为何》
我们坐在医院走廊的长凳上
挨着隔壁的餐厅，等待着。
你知道等待是什么。
但凡是稍微懂点事儿，
你就一定知道等待是什么。
It's not about you.
This is about
illness and hospitals and life and death.
This is about the smell of the disinfectant
that hits you in the head.
这里的重点并不是你
而是疾病，是医院，是生与死。
是刺鼻的 消毒水的味道。
In the bathroom you look in the mirror.
What do you see?
Your father's sad face?
Your mother's eyes?
在卫生间里，你直视镜子
你看到了什么？
父亲的愁容？
还是母亲的眸？
You catch the water cupped
in your thickened hands,
splash it on your face,
and hope against hope
you can wash it away---
the aging brown spots, the bags,
the swelling truth of waiting---
So you go back to that bench.
你用粗糙的双手
掬起一捧水
让它打在自己的脸上，
你绝望地期望着，
以这样的方式将它冲洗掉——
褐色的老年斑、眼袋，
等待导致的浮肿
于是你又回到走廊的长椅上。
Maybe your mother is there or your wife
who is waiting for your father who is waiting
for the news from the surgeon
or the morphine for the pain
or the nurse who cleans bedpans
who is waiting for her shift to change
while another man's hand clamps
white as a claw
to a clutch of bed sheets, and you wait.
或许是你的母亲，也可能是你的妻子
正在那里等待着你的父亲
他正等待着医生的消息
或是等待着止痛的吗啡
也或是等待着过来清理便盆的护士
——她又正在等待着换班
这时另一个人正用白得像兽爪的手
紧紧攥住床单的一角
你只能继续等待。
So you hear the news,
and you take the long trip back
from LA or Detroit---
wherever you're from---
and you see the face of drivers
as they approach you out of the fog,
and you see this one: a woman
hunched over the wheel like your mother,
and you think, It is my mother,
and you want to tell her everything,how waiting kills
and what is does to your life,
the fifty years of marriage is an eyelash blink,
but she's past you now and headed in the wrong direction,
so you wait.
后来你听到了消息，
就从洛杉矶还是底特律——
不管你家到底在哪里——赶了很远的路回来，
一路上你看到那些从雾中向你迎面驶来的
汽车里司机的面孔，
其中你看到：
一位妇女弓着身子紧贴着方向盘，
就像你母亲一样，
你心里就在想，这就是我母亲。
于是你想把所有的话都说给她听，
告诉她等待有多磨人，
它让你的生活有了怎样的变化，
告诉她与父亲这五十年的婚姻就如白驹过隙，
但是她的车已经开过去了，
朝着相反的方向，
于是你便继续等待。
Then, out of the corner of you eyes,
you see your father's face in the driver's seat
of a '49 powder blue Ponitiac sedan.
The thin silver of his moonlit profile's smiling,
but the nose is too long
and it's not really him,
and besides he'd never understand anyway---
this impatience, this anger,
this rage, this love,
this fog on the windshield,
the never ever knowing if it's inside or out---
because his whole life was waiting,
and what does a fish know of the water
or a bird of the air?
然后，就在目光所及的地方，
在一辆49年款粉蓝色庞蒂克轿车的驾驶座上
你看到了你父亲的脸。
月光下他瘦削的面孔微笑着，
但那鼻子显然太长了，这个人其实并不是他，
另外，他反正也永远不会理解——
这焦灼，这气氛，这盛怒，这爱，
这挡风玻璃上的雾气，
这甚至不知是在车内还是车外的茫然——
因为他的一生都是在等待，
哪见过鱼会了解水，
鸟会了解它飞翔着的天空？
So you push the leaden accelerator down
and act like you're headed to some
small emergency, and you don't give a damn
about the cop waiting behind the billboard
or death over your left shoulder,
and you think you might want to pray,
and you do pray,
but you don't know what for,
and, anyway, you're driving, so you go back
to the endless lines of headlights
and traffic and exit signs
until you get home to see the light
flash on your answering machine,
but you don't pick it up.
Instead, you go to the bathroom,
take a shower, take a piss, pull out
a carton of leftover food---anything---
but you can't swallow it.
于是你一脚把沉甸甸的油门踩下去
踩得就好像你要赶赴一个小小的紧急状况，
就好像根本不在乎有警察在广告牌后面等候
或者死神从你背后窥伺
你觉得自己可能想要祷告
你也确是在祷告了，但却不知为何祷告
反正你都正在开车，于是你掉头回去
迎着无休止的车灯与拥堵
迎着高速公路的出口指示牌
直到你一路赶回家，
看到电话答录机上提示灯在闪烁，
但你没有去应答，
而是走进洗手间，洗澡，上厕所，
你拿出一盒剩饭——不管里面装的是什么
但你就是无法下咽。
So you push the button,
and it's your sister's voice.
but it's choked,
and she can't speak.
That's how I learned
that the waiting was over,
that my life changed forever,
that this end was a beginning,
but I didn't know for what.
I used to think it was death I was waiting for,
but that's not what this is. This is life.
于是你还是摁下了答录机上的按钮，
里面传来你姐姐的声音，
但那声音是哽咽的，
她已泣不成声。
这样，我就知道等待结束了，
知道我的人生从此永远地改变，
知道这个结束只是一个开始，
但我不知道开始的是什么。
我曾以为我等待的是死亡的来临，
但眼前的情况并非如此。这是生命。
So you show up and do the work
and love who you love, and you learn to wait,
and if you are lucky, you learn what waiting is
and what you have to give.
于是你振作起来，做自己该做的事，
爱你所爱的人，你学会了等待，
而且如果你足够幸运，
还会觉知到等待究竟是什么，
以及，你必须要付出些什么。
苏岩
曾经的老师，现居美国，一名全职妈妈。兴趣广泛，爱好专一，被大宝带着，喜欢上了诗歌。2019年2月加入“是光”，不定期地翻译国外诗歌创作、欣赏和教学方面的文章，给自己充电，也和大家分享。
本期编辑 | 小悦“光”
校对 | 靖“光”
插画 | Seungyoun Kim
版权所有 未经授权 请勿转载
如需转载或使用文章
欢迎在公众号后台回复“转载”