An Outline

是一首我很有感觸的英文詩。
我很難得對英文詩有感觸的。
一方面是因為老覺得：你說，這是詩？！那不是詩，是我說的話！
［那一夜，我們說相聲］
總想我們中文詩的那種意境意涵，哪是幾個英文字連押韻都稱不上可比的。

另一方面，或許是我英文還沒好到可以了解詩吧。

An Outline 。Bill Manhire。（１９８２）

First we disowned parents
because they always said after;
and friends promised to be around
but were not. Our teachers gave
encouragement and then prescribed
the lonely flower inside the brain.
One showed a picture
but soon would kick the bucket.

At home, away from home, but mostly
nowhere special, we took our own advice.
We got in the car and then just drove
along the road past cliffs and river,
and when we stopped
we slept on the parchment floor,
taking it for the real thing.
We wrote out the poem and slept on it.

Still, there was nothing good for us in words,
or nothing couched in formal English,
while being good itself was good for nothing,
and then again therewas always something
coming next, though no particular direction.
The baby lay in its cot and cooed
or it lay afloat in water inside mother.
When once that baby grows, we said,
and put away the car. We bulit the house then
by the side of the road
at the end of the road beside the river.
Friends came and were welcome
though many failed to make sense
except in pieces, and others
had only rested quietly by mistake.
All day they took their boats

upon the water. We felt alone
perhaps, but full of promise.
We still possessed the poem in outline,
we had kept some image of the flower in mind.
Now, too, there were provisions, jars of perserves
against the future, photographs toremind
that nothing entered the picture
save cats and children; and the telephone rang

to tell of father's death or just
in other words to ask who's speaking.
We sat by the road and watched
the water tremble as it still stayed perfect.
We woke and slept and that is how
we kept in touch. The children woke in the night
and cried and we sang words to cure.
One crashed the car

and the others soon shot through.
We were young too: we thought
that every goodbye was the last goodbye
and that every last word was made to be careful.
We waved and we waved of course , and now
we find we don't stop waving: believing we see
our life at last, and thinking it over,
knowing how far the road goes home.

October 24, 2006