标题：理查•休果
理查•休果
1959年理查•休果与同门的卡罗琳•凯泽Carolyn Kizer等四人创办很有影响的诗歌杂志Poetry Northwest西北诗歌。其间，他在波音公司做各式工作，直到1963年离职重访意大利。一年后回国，一直执教于蒙大纳大学，1971年成为创作课程主任，1977年成为耶鲁青年诗歌系列的评委和编辑，1980年患癌切除一叶肺，1982年突然死于白血病，时年58岁。墓碑上刻着他一首诗Glen Uig《谷坳》的最后一句：Believe you and I sing tiny/ and wise and could if we had to eat stone and go on （相信你与我唱得低微/ 又机智，而且假若迫不得已，我们也能吃石头而向前）。
虽然他在大学任教十八年之久，但是他的诗歌却与学院派无缘。他曾说：如果只让我说学院派评家的一点不是之处，那么我要说：他们不相信自己的直接感受，他们觉得如果一种感受不能从学术上加以论证，那么就没有合法性。他诗歌中的主题对象主要是太平洋西北岸的景物人情，他尤其擅长写鱼类、牧场以及荒弃的村镇等。他曾说，一个诗人要想写一首真正的诗，就不应该以人们通常认为应该用诗表现的事物为主题对象。他一生共出版十多部诗集，另有论文集与小说；曾两度被提名国家图书奖和普利策奖。他死后出版的Making Certain it Goes On: The Collected Poems of Richard Hugo (1983, 1991)《确保其生生不息：理查•休果诗歌全编》收集了已出的单行本诗集以及未收集出版的新诗。
未收集出版的新诗
Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg 
Richard Hugo
You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done.
The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can't wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs--
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won't fall finally down.
Isn't this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn't this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don't empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn sufficient to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?
Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I'll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You're talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it's mined, is silver
and the girl who serves your food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.
菲利斯堡镇不同程度的灰色
理查•休果
你来这里，可能是星期天的一时兴起。
就算是你的生活抛了锚。上一次醉心的吻
已是多年前的事。你脚下的这些街道，
由疯子们向你展示，你穿过一些宾馆，
全都难以为继，酒吧生意倒还不错，当地的
驾驶员扭曲着脸，试图加速自己的生命。
只有教堂都还保留完整。那座监狱今年
刚过七十华诞，惟一的囚犯总在里面，
不知道自己到底犯了什么案。
如今的支柱性产业是愤怒。
忌恨冲着那座大山送来的不同色调的
灰，冲着风车、银矿法案的废止、
冲着那些最为得宠的女孩，
她们每年都要去比尤特市。一家好饭店
以及几座酒吧并不能将沉闷抹除。
1907年的兴旺年头，有八家银矿在开采，
一家舞场整个就是建在弹簧上——
所有的记忆都在眼前烟消云散，
四顾一片绿色，你知道还有牛羊在吃草、
或者有两个大烟囱伸到镇子上空、
两座废弃的矿窑，还有一座巨大的风车
摇摇欲坠，五十年了，还没彻底倒下。
这不就是你的人生么？那个久远的吻
仍然在焚烧你的双眼？这场溃败是否
如此准时，教堂的钟声简直就是
一道纯粹的公告：敲响了，却无人聚集。
空荡荡的房子不会回荡么？碱金属
和不屑难道不足以支撑一个小镇？
不仅是这菲利斯堡，而且还包括各式小镇，
那儿有高挑的金色女人、动听的爵士与酒，
而你都无法享用这一切，你必须等，这世界
要等到你自己的镇子从内部死亡时才让你拥有。
对你自己大声说不。那个老家伙，监狱
刚建时年方二十，如今双唇已经干瘪，
可他仍会开怀大笑。他说，不久的将来，
我将眼睛一闭，再也不会醒来。
你对他说不。而你正在说给你自己听。
将你带到这儿来的汽车还没熄火。
你用来买午餐的零钱，不管是
从哪儿开采出来的，都是银子，
而那个为你端来饭菜的女孩
那么苗条，红色的头发照亮了墙壁。
选自《确保其生生不息》第217-8页
Driving Montana
The day is a woman who loves you. Open. 
Deer drink close to the road and magpies 
spray from your car. Miles from any town 
your radio comes in strong, unlikely 
Mozart from Belgrade, rock and roll 
from Butte. Whatever the next number, 
you want to hear it. Never has your Buick 
found this forward a gear. Even 
the tuna salad in Reedpoint is good. 
Towns arrive ahead of imagined schedule. 
Absorakee at one. Or arrive so late--- 
Silesia at nine---you recreate the day. 
Where did you stop along the road 
and have fun? Was there a runaway horse? 
Did you park at that house, the one 
alone in a void of grain, white with green 
trim and red fence, where you know you lived 
once? You remembered the ringing creek, 
the soft brown forms of far off bison. 
You must have stayed hours, then drove on. 
In the motel you know you'd never seen it before. 
Tomorrow will open again, the sky wide 
as the mouth of a wild girl, friable 
clouds you lose yourself to. You are lost 
in miles of land without people, without 
one fear of being found, in the dash 
of rabbits, soar of antelope, swirl 
merge and clatter of streams.
驶过蒙大纳
理查•休果
那白日是一个女人，爱着你。开放。
鹿到靠公路很近的地方饮水，而喜鹊
从你的车上飞散。最近的村子也在
数英里之外，收音机很亢奋，难得的是
播放着贝尔格莱德版的莫扎特，以及本州
比尤特市的摇滚。随便调谐到哪个数字，
都还能令你听一听。你的别克车从未向前
转动过一个齿轮。甚至像芦苇岬这样的
偏远小镇，也有很可口的金枪鱼色拉。
市镇抢在你想象的行程表之前到来。
一点钟，阿布索拉基到了；或说抵达得
太迟——九点才到塞莱希亚——那天你
一直贪欢。你行驶于那条路，中途停在
何处寻欢？你是否看见一匹逃脱的马？
驶过一片空阔的谷物中孤零零的白房子，
看它被绿色的树篱和红色的栅栏围着，
你是否将车泊在那幢房子前，心想你
曾经在此住过？你记起了潺潺的小溪
以及野牛在远处显出淡褐色的形状。
你肯定停了几个小时，然后才继续上路。
一进那家汽车旅馆，你便知道你从未来过。
明日将再次打开，天空会辽阔得
犹如一个野丫头的嘴巴，而易碎的
云朵会令你迷失其中。你会迷失于
数英里毫无人烟的土地，这儿野兔
乱冲乱撞、羚羊跳跃飞奔，而溪流
淙淙、蜿蜒交汇，你绝不会被人发现。
选自《确保其生生不息》
Distances
Driving a prairie, we see a mill far off 
and though clouds climbing out of the stack 
pollute the air we find the sight lovely. 
Horses on the rim of a distant rise 
move faintly. We barely see them move 
though they run wild. Or when a mile offshore 
whales romp and spout, we admire 
fountains in Rome, and the distant cathedral 
that makes all daylit hours dawn. Artillery 
lights a glorious horizon too far for us 
to hear the thundering guns. We remain 
out of earshot of scream. 
Clouds bring rivers closer, bring closer 
the homesteader's cabin, the antelope herd. 
Clouds move on and the day opens to distance. 
Animals are dots. They could be cattle or sheep. 
Whatever, they no doubt graze safely and sky 
drums wide. Whole symphonies live between 
here and a distant whatever-we-look-at. 
At night, what we can't see advances 
fast and armed over the quaking plain. 
All things came close and harmless 
first thing this morning, a new trick of light. 
Let's learn that trick. If we can, it will mean 
we live in this world, neighbor to goat, 
neighbor to trout, and we can take comfort 
in low birds that hang long enough for us 
to read markings and look up names 
we'll whisper to them from now on.
距离种种
理查•休果
驶过牧场，遥遥可见一座风车，
虽说爬出烟囱的云朵
玷污了天空，这景色仍然悦目可喜。
马匹在远方的坡顶边缘
隐约地移动。我们却难以看出它们在动，
虽然它们跑得很野。或者当离岸一哩外的鲸
顽皮地跃出、喷水，我们观赏着
罗马喷泉，还有远处的大教堂，
它使得所有的日照时光化为黎明。炮兵
点亮了一条壮丽的地平线，太遥远了，
我们听不到如雷的枪声。尖叫
无法触及我们的耳鼓。
有了云朵，河流更近了，牧场主人的
小木屋更近了，羚羊群也更近了。
云朵未停，而白昼向远方敞开。
动物都成了小点，可能是牛或者是羊。
不管怎样，它们啃草无疑啃得安然，
而天空的鼓声宽阔。多少部交响曲
演奏在眼前与我们目力所及的远方之间。
入夜，我们不曾看到的一切
武装起自己，在震动的平原上快速行进。
万物走得近了，而今晨的第一件
无害之物，曦光的一个新诡计。
我们还是学会这诡计吧。如果能学会，
那将意味着我们活在这世界，与山羊为邻，
与鳟鱼为邻。我们能欣悦于低飞的鸟儿，
看它们久久地浮悬在我们眼前，
辨别那翅纹，查阅出它们的名字，
从此之后我们就能对它们低语。
选自《确保其生生不息》第435页
转载自诗生活得一忘二的翻译专栏“雕水之de”，译者可能随时修改专栏中的文字。