〈剝拔〉（一名〈獻辭〉） 約翰·蒙塔格（試譯：淺白）
愛人，當我們傾談時
他們移走了屋頂。接着
又開始往牆壁動手；
窗玻璃在木框內，被一格格
剝拔，像牙齒。
但你將話冷靜的說下去
你得體的示範
迫使我回神應答。
而當我們終於抵達最後
的音節、且已幾乎接受
我們的位置時，我見到
地板已消失了：
我們的站立處，已然是黏坭所在。
19/7/2022稿
Uprooting (or In Dedication)
By John Montague (from his 1967 collection A Chosen Light)
My love, while we talked
They removed the roof. Then
They started on the walls,
Panes of glass uprooting
From timber, like teeth.
But you spoke calmly on,
Your example of courtesy
Compelling me to reply.
When we reached the last
Syllable, nearly accepting
Our positions, I saw that
The floorboards were gone:
It was clay we stood upon.
愛人，當我們傾談時
他們移走了屋頂。接着
又開始往牆壁動手；
窗玻璃在木框內，被一格格
剝拔，像牙齒。
但你將話冷靜的說下去
你得體的示範
迫使我回神應答。
而當我們終於抵達最後
的音節、且已幾乎接受
我們的位置時，我見到
地板已消失了：
我們的站立處，已然是黏坭所在。
19/7/2022稿
Uprooting (or In Dedication)
By John Montague (from his 1967 collection A Chosen Light)
My love, while we talked
They removed the roof. Then
They started on the walls,
Panes of glass uprooting
From timber, like teeth.
But you spoke calmly on,
Your example of courtesy
Compelling me to reply.
When we reached the last
Syllable, nearly accepting
Our positions, I saw that
The floorboards were gone:
It was clay we stood upon.
圖片源自網絡。
"I chose this short verse because it seamlessly strips bare, not only language, but love and identity, and the sense of place. He is tilling sorrow... with great simplicity and truth. And the body, which carries on with life, is itself heading back, despite all its knowledge and awareness, via the ruin of a house, to its skeletal origins...
"here it is also a loving personal relationship that is going, down through the floors, to the last s on the tongue, and yet the lady’s sense of bravery and courtesy means the poet is obliged to carry on till acceptance arrives for them both, as they approach silence.
"‘My love’, the poet begins his dedication. The address is quiet. Intimacy laces the opening, as slowly we step into the lift to travel to the bottom floor. We are going down. The attempt is to soldier on as the portents grow more ominous. The conversation bravely continues and then the sounds begin to die out. As you descend what you pass disappears... The decorations are in shards... Everything has been uprooted... Who they are that removed the roof are never named...
"Loss is at work with great intensity and simplicity. Then the journey ends. We are faced into emptiness, but the ground is at our feet.
"The poet touches the core when he speaks of reaching ‘the last syllable’.
"The silence is all pervading."
-From Chosen Lights: Poets on Poems(ed. by Peter Fallon), Dermot Healy on the poem
