The Words Continue Their Journey by Margaret Atwood
<那些話語繼續它們的旅行>
詩人真承受較多的苦痛嗎
和其他人比起來？不是只是
他們拍了幾張照
然後被看見了而已嗎？
瘋人院裡盡是那些
從未寫過詩的人。
大部分自殺的都不是
詩人：令人愉快的統計數字。
不過有些時候我還是，想，
像其他人一樣；
但當我走近並與他們交談，
以為這些人該是
不同的，可他們與我們非常相像，
除了他們缺少那麼點
我們認為是聲音的東西。
我們告訴自己他們更加模糊黯淡
跟我們比起來，更不清晰，
他們是為我們所定義的，
我們是在幫他們的忙，
那讓我們感覺更美好。
他們面對苦痛沒辦法像我們一樣優雅。
但是聽著，我說我們。儘管我可能對你們個別的
極度厭惡，也永遠不想見到你們，
儘管我寧可花時間
和牙醫們在一起因為我能學得更多，
論及我們的時候我就說我們，是我召集我們
像是某個註定失敗的沙漠商隊成員
我是那樣看待我們的，一起旅行，
一個個戴著面紗的女人，和朝內彎的
視線以及總是避開的眼睛，
在群體裡的男人，和他們的鬍子
暗語和虛張聲勢
在被困住的地方，我們選擇的位置，
一個朝聖旅行在很後面很後面
因轉錯彎而終止
在這兒，太陽刺眼的
強光裡，還有硬梆梆的紅黑色影子
被各個石塊扮演，每棵死去的樹慘白
在自己的細節中，自己加倍的重力，卻漂浮
在石塊的光暈內，和樹的，
然而我們不會比其他人要失敗，當我們走
在一起，穿越這個月球地面
每樣東西都極乾燥並且枯萎也因此
生動逼真，進到沙丘裡，消失在看不見的地方，
消失在彼此看不見的地方，
消失在我們也看不見的地方，
尋找水源。
原文：
Do poets really suffer more
than other people? Isn't it only
that they get their pictures taken
and are seen to do it?
The loony bins are full of those
who never wrote a poem.
Most suicides are not
poets: a good statistic.
Some days though I want, still,
to be like other people;
but then I go and talk with them,
these people who are supposed to be
other, and they are much like us,
except that they lack the sort of thing
we think of as a voice.
We tell ourselves they are fainter
than we are, less defined,
that they are what we are defining,
that we are doing them a favour,
which makes us feel better.
They are less elegant about pain than we are.
But look, I said us. Though I may hate your guts
individually, and want never to see you,
though I prefer to spend my time
with dentists because I learn more,
I spoke of us as we, I gathered us
like the members of some doomed caravan
which is how I see us, travelling together,
the women veiled and singly, with that inturned
sight and the eyes averted,
the men in groups, with their moustaches
and passwords and bravado
in the place we're stuck in, the place we've chosen,
a pilgrimage that took a wrong turn
somewhere far back and ended
here, in the full glare
of the sun, and the hard red-black shadows
cast by each stone, each dead tree lurid
in its particulars, its doubled gravity, but floating
too in the aureole of stone, of tree,
and we're no more doomed really than anyone, as we go
together, through this moon terrain
where everything is dry and perishing and so
vivid, into the dunes, vanishing out of sight,
vanishing out of the sight of each other,
vanishing even out of our own sight,
looking for water.
Atwood, Margaret. 2005. Eating Fire- Selected Poetry 1965-1995. Great Britain:
Virago Press
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