Two winter poems

Winter Poem

by Robert Bly

The quivering wings of the winter ant
wait for lean winter to end.
I love you in slow, dim-witted ways,
hardly speaking, one or two words only.
What caused us to live hidden?
A wound, the wind, a word, a parent.
Sometimes we wait in a helpless way,
awkwardly, not whole and not healed.
When we hid the wound, we fell back
from a human to a shelled life.
Now we feel the ant’s hard chest,
the carapace, the silent tongue.
The must be the way of the ant,
the winter ant, the way of those
who are wounded and want to live:
to breathe, to sense another, and to wait.

冬蚁颤抖着翅膀
等待酷寒的冬天结束。
我用缓慢且笨拙的方式爱你，
几乎不说话，仅只词片语。

是什么让我们过着隐藏的生活？
伤病，风，话语，父母。
有时候我们会无助地，
尴尬地，破碎不痊地等待。

当我们掩盖住伤口，我们从人类
退回到有壳生命。
现在我们能感受到蚂蚁坚硬的胸膛，
甲壳，沉默的舌头。

这一定是蚂蚁的生活方式，
冬蚁的生活方式，那些受伤
并想活下去的人的生活方式:
呼吸，感知他人，无声等待。

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All who seek you

by R.M. Rilke ” The Book of Hours” 2.15

All who seek you
test you.
And those who find you
bind you to image and gesture.

I would rather sense you
as the earth senses you.
In my ripening
ripens
what you are.

I need from you no tricks
to prove you exist.
Time, I know,
is other than you.

No miracles, please.
Just let your laws
become clearer
from generation to generation.

一切寻找你的人
都想试探你；
那些找到你的人
将会束缚你，
用图画，用姿势。

我却愿理解你，
像大地理解你，
随着我成熟
你的王国也会
成熟。

我不想从你那儿获得
证明你存在的虚荣。
我知道：时光有自己的
名姓，你有你的
姓名。

不要为我显示奇迹。
让你的诚律合乎情理，
让它们一代一代
更加明晰。

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Collected by Fang Wang