驼鹿
致格蕾丝-巴尔默-鲍尔斯
从狭窄的省份
那里有鱼、面包和茶，
绵长的浪涛的故乡
那里海湾每天两次
脱离大海并带着
青鱼远驰，
在那里大河是否
裹挟一壁棕色的泡沫
涌入或退却
要看它是否遇到
侵入的海湾
离家的海湾；
那里，红色壅塞，
有时太阳面向
一个红色的大海落下，
而有时，枝离蔓延一块块
淡紫，燃亮的溪流中
肥沃的泥；
红了，铺着碎石的道路，
驶过一行行糖枫，
经过木板农舍
和整洁，发白，蛤壳般
尖耸的木板教堂，
经过两株银桦，
行过日午
一辆巴士向西驶去，
挡风玻璃闪烁着粉光，
金属的粉一闪
擦过蓝色凹陷的
腰际，磨损的珐琅；
下谷，攀高，
等候，耐心的，当
一个孤独的旅人
亲吻并拥抱
七个亲戚
和一只守望的牧羊狗。
别了榆树，
别了农场，狗儿。
巴士启动。 光线
越来越丰富；雾
游移不定，灵活，轻薄
渐渐围拢。
它的寒气，绕着水的晶体
聚形，滑动，然后落在
白母鸡的羽毛上，
在蒙着灰光的的卷心菜上，
在西洋玫瑰
和十二使徒般的羽扇豆上；
香豌豆挂在
攀在白栅栏上的
它们那潮湿的
白色的茎上
黄蜂潜入
毛地黄花丛，
而夜晚来临。
巴斯河那有一站
然后是伊刻诺尔梅村
下、中和上加拿大省；
五岛区，五屋地，
那里一个女人晚餐后
在屋外抖着桌布。
隐约一闪的光。 远去了
坦塔玛耳湿地
和盐甘草。
一座铁桥摇晃着
一块松了的木板嘎吱作响
但没有掉下。
在左边，一盏红灯
游过黑暗：
一艘船上的提灯。
两只胶鞋露出来
闪着亮，煞有其事的。
一只狗叫了一声。
一个女人上了车
带着两个购物袋，
精神、长着雀斑的中年女子。
“多好的夜晚。 是的，先生，
一直到波士顿。“
她友好地看着我们。
当我们进入新不伦瑞克
树林，月光
散发、凌乱、碎裂，
月光和雾
在草场的灌木丛上
像羊毛一样裹在自身里。
乘客躺向后面
打鼾。 有人长叹。
一种似梦的游荡
在夜色中开始，
轻柔、听的见
缓慢的幻觉. . . .. . . .
在嘎吱吱和声响中
一个过去的对话
——和我们无关，
却又能晓得，某一处，
巴士的后面
外祖父母的声音
不停地
说，在永恒中：
提到的一些名字，
最终讲清的一些事情；
他说了什么，她说了什么，
谁得到了退休金；
死亡，死亡和疾病；
他重婚的那年；
（有些事）发生的那年。
她死于分娩。
失去的是个儿子
当纵帆船建好时。
他开始纵酒。是的。
她开始走霉运。
阿摩司开始祈祷
甚至在商店里，最后家人
不得不把他赶走。
“是的. . . . . .”那独特的
肯定的。 “是的. . . . . .”
一个短促的，抽进的吸气，
半是抱怨，半是接受，
那意味着“生活就像那样。
我们知道（还有死亡）。”
就那样他们说这着话
在那张旧时的羽毛床上，
平静地，说个不停，
大厅里灯火昏暗，
在厨房里，那狗
蜷缩在她的披肩里。
现在，一切都会好
哪怕睡去
就像在那些夜晚。
——突然，巴士司机
急刹车，
熄灭了车灯。
一头驼鹿走出
不可进入的树林
站在那里，或者说是，降临，
在道路的中间。
它靠近，它嗅着
巴士发热的发动机罩。
高耸，无角的，
高如教堂，
平和如同房舍
（或者，安全如房舍）。
一个男人的声音安抚我们
“完全无害的. . . . . . . .”
有些乘客
低声惊叹，
孩子般，温柔地，
“真是个大家伙。”
“它可真是坦然”
“看，它是母的！”
从容不迫，
她仔细看着巴士，
庄严地，超然地。
为什么，为什么我们感受到
（我们全都感到）这种甜美的
快乐的感觉？
“好奇的动物，”
我们那安静的司机说，
卷着他的r音。
“看它，行吗。”
然后他换档。
有那么一会儿
向后探着头，
还可以看到那驼鹿
在月光照亮的柏油路上；
然后一丝淡淡的
驼鹿的气味，一股
汽油扑鼻的气味。
The Moose
Elizabeth Bishop
For Grace Bulmer Bowers（1）
From narrow provinces
of fish and bread and tea,
home of the long tides
where the bay leaves the sea
twice a day and takes
the herrings long rides,
where if the river
enters or retreats
in a wall of brown foam
depends on if it meets
the bay coming in,
the bay not at home;
where, silted red,
sometimes the sun sets
facing a red sea,
and others, veins the flats'
lavender, rich mud
in burning rivulets;
on red, gravelly roads,
down rows of sugar maples,
past clapboard farmhouses
and neat, clapboard churches,
bleached, ridged as clamshells,
past twin silver birches,
through late afternoon
a bus journeys west,
the windshield flashing pink,
pink glancing off of metal,
brushing the dented flank
of blue, beat-up enamel;
down hollows, up rises,
and waits, patient, while
a lone traveller gives
kisses and embraces
to seven relatives
and a collie supervises.
Goodbye to the elms,
to the farm, to the dog.
The bus starts. The light
grows richer; the fog,
shifting, salty, thin,
comes closing in.
Its cold, round crystals
form and slide and settle
in the white hens' feathers,
in gray glazed cabbages,
on the cabbage roses
and lupins like apostles;
the sweet peas cling
to their wet white string
on the whitewashed fences;
bumblebees creep
inside the foxgloves,
and evening commences.
One stop at Bass River.
Then the Economies（2）
Lower, Middle, Upper;
Five Islands, Five Houses,
where a woman shakes a tablecloth
out after supper.
A pale flickering. Gone.
The Tantramar marshes (3)
and the smell of salt hay.
An iron bridge trembles
and a loose plank rattles
but doesn't give way.
On the left, a red light
swims through the dark:
a ship's port lantern.
Two rubber boots show,
illuminated, solemn.
A dog gives one bark.
A woman climbs in
with two market bags,
brisk, freckled, elderly.
"A grand night. Yes, sir,
all the way to Boston."
She regards us amicably.
Moonlight as we enter
the New Brunswick woods,
hairy, scratchy, splintery;
moonlight and mist
caught in them like lamb's wool
on bushes in a pasture.
The passengers lie back.
Snores. Some long sighs.
A dreamy divagation
begins in the night,
a gentle, auditory,
slow hallucination. . . .
In the creakings and noises,
an old conversation
--not concerning us,
but recognizable, somewhere,
back in the bus:
Grandparents' voices
uninterruptedly
talking, in Eternity:
names being mentioned,
things cleared up finally;
what he said, what she said,
who got pensioned;
deaths, deaths and sicknesses;
the year he remarried;
the year (something) happened.
She died in childbirth.
That was the son lost
when the schooner foundered.
He took to drink. Yes.
She went to the bad.
When Amos began to pray (4)
even in the store and
finally the family had
to put him away.
"Yes . . ." that peculiar
affirmative. "Yes . . ."
A sharp, indrawn breath,
half groan, half acceptance,
that means "Life's like that.
We know it (also death)."
Talking the way they talked
in the old featherbed,
peacefully, on and on,
dim lamplight in the hall,
down in the kitchen, the dog
tucked in her shawl.
Now, it's all right now
even to fall asleep
just as on all those nights.
--Suddenly the bus driver
stops with a jolt,
turns off his lights.
A moose has come out of
the impenetrable wood
and stands there, looms, rather,
in the middle of the road.
It approaches; it sniffs at
the bus's hot hood.
Towering, antlerless,
high as a church,
homely as a house
(or, safe as houses).
A man's voice assures us
"Perfectly harmless. . . ."
Some of the passengers
exclaim in whispers,
childishly, softly,
"Sure are big creatures."
"It's awful plain."
"Look! It's a she!"
Taking her time,
she looks the bus over,
grand, otherworldly.
Why, why do we feel
(we all feel) this sweet
sensation of joy?
"Curious creatures,"
says our quiet driver,
rolling his r's.
"Look at that, would you."
Then he shifts gears.
For a moment longer,
by craning backward,
the moose can be seen
on the moonlit macadam;
then there's a dim
smell of moose, an acrid
smell of gasoline.
（1）Grace Bulmer Bowers: Bishop at one point wrote to her favourite aunt, Grace Bulmer Bowers, to tell her that she was writing a new poem called The Moose, and was planning to dedicate it to her. Grace had died by the time the poem was finished. It is one of her finest.
（2）the Economies：Economy is an unincorporated community of approximately 200 people located along the north shore of the Minas Basin/Cobequid Bay, at approximately 45°23'N, 63°54'W, in Colchester County, Nova Scotia. Considerably depopulated now, the village supported a ship-building industry during the late 1800s.
The place-name 'Economy' comes from the 18th century Acadian place-name for the area L'Économie, which itself is an adaptation of the Mi'kmaq First Nation word for the location, kenomee, meaning 'a place of land jutting into the sea'. Mi'kmaqs presumably named the area thus because here the shoreline juts out into the Minas Basin at what is now known as Economy Point. (East of this point the Cobequid Bay begins). Mi'kmaqs hunted and gathered throughout the region for hundreds of years prior the settlement of Acadian families in the Economy area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy,_Nova_Scotia
（3）Tantramar Marshes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantramar_Marsh
（4）Amos：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_(prophet)
