戴安·瓦柯斯基：为了钢琴课感谢我的母亲

为了钢琴课感谢我的母亲

戴安·瓦柯斯基
        
把手指放在琴键上的那种欣慰，
像是你走在海滩上
发现了一颗钻石
跟只鞋子一般大；

像是
你刚做好一个木桌
空气里是木屑的气味，
你的手干燥，带着木香；

像是
你躲开了
那带着黑帽尾随你整整
一礼拜的男人

那欣慰
将你的手指放到琴键上，
弹奏和弦
贝多芬，
巴赫，
肖邦
------------在一个没人可以说话的下午，
------------杂志广告上穿柔软毛衣和留着
------------共和党派中产阶级整洁光亮头发的人物
------------走进铺着地毯的宅子
------------而让我独自一人
------------只有光地板和几本书

我要感谢我的母亲
每天在修车厂、供水公司
死气沉沉的办公室
上班
40岁起从咖啡里舀去奶油
为了减肥，她笨重的身体
填写笔迹纤细的每日明细帐目
孤单一人，没有男人看她的脸，
她的身体，她早白的头发
带着爱意
------------我要感谢
我的母亲工作并总是
在她偿还运通银行贷款
购买日用品
或修理我们那辆嘎吱作响的福特车之前
给我的钢琴课付学费

我是个安静的孩子，
害怕一个人走进商店；
害怕水，
太阳，
后院里污脏的杂草，
害怕我母亲难闻的气味，
害怕我父亲偶然回家，
因为知道他又会离开；
害怕身无分文，
害怕我笨拙的身体，
我知道它
------------没人会去爱

但是我在那10块钱
买来的直立式钢琴上
弹出我的道路，
在恐惧中弹奏，
在丑陋中弹奏，
在廉价小卖铺用品的世界里成长中，
和渴望去爱
一个无爱的世界中弹奏。

我弹出我的道路忍受着我那难看的脸
孤独的下午，白天，黄昏，夜晚，
甚至早晨，空荡荡
像一只生锈的咖啡罐，
在春风荡荡中弹奏
梦想身边的事物全都发出柔光
像南加州落日下平缓海滩上的细浪，
我弹奏着熬过
一个空白的父亲，他的帽子放在母亲的衣柜里
她只睡半边的那张床，
从不弄皱一寸
那另一半，
等啊，
等——

我弹出我的道路，在学校拿到一个个荣誉，
那是唯一我能够说话的
地方
------------教室，
------------或是我的钢琴课，希勒豪斯夫人的金丝雀总是
------------为我的才华而唱得最欢，
------------好象我已扔掉身体的一部分，当我进入
------------她的房间
------------而那时开始寻找每一组象牙白的
------------琴键，手指滑过黑色的
------------山脊和圆润的岩石，
------------迷惑在哪里失落了我该死的肉身
------------或是我的嘴，它有时张开
------------像一朵加利福尼亚罂粟
------------宽广，对比鲜明
------------在浩荡的田野里那样美丽，
------------而在清晨和夜晚却完全合拢，

一岁又一岁我尽情弹奏，
但它们似乎全都没有岁月的痕迹
或许永远
老而孤独，
只有一个向往，在橘子树叶酸腐刺鼻
的气味中，
只想被一个爱我的男人抚摸，
他每晚都在
他会把大而有力的手放在我肩头，
早上我贴着他的屁股醒来，
他的胡子摩挲着一张脸睡去；
梦着许多钢琴弹出莫扎特、
舒伯特，而不是让
生活从每一天中
吸干你的一切
不是索求一个柔弱微小生命的
空虚。

我感谢我的母亲
任我练琴时
在早上6点吵醒她
让我有一架钢琴
每个下午可以放上我的课本。
10年了，我没有动那钢琴，
也许是害怕我曾经还能从口袋角
捡出的那一点棉布头般微薄的爱，
会丢失，
滑掉，
滑入我那可怕的空洞
如果我再次彻底打开它。
爱是一个男人
长着胡子，
每晚温柔地搂着我，
我需要触摸他时他总在身旁；
他不会知道
他的爱，让那在脑袋里
锤呀、敲呀、打呀
来自过去的令人痛苦的喧响的音乐停下
在我孤独的时候
它曾经极尽所能摧毁我纷扰不定的脑灰质；
他没听过希勒豪斯夫人的金丝雀为我歌唱，
喜欢我那周课上的琴声，
告诉我，
确认我的老师说的，
我有罕见的
钢琴天赋。
当我抚摸这个男人
我爱的男人，
我要感谢我的母亲
让我上钢琴课
那么些年，
在心里，
珍藏着对贝多芬，
一个倍受苦难的聋子，
的记忆；
------------和能从一个
丑陋的过去而来的
美的记忆。


Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons
by Diane Wakoski

The relief of putting your fingers on the keyboard,
as if you were walking on the beach
and found a diamond
as big as a shoe;

as if
you had just built a wooden table
and the smell of sawdust was in the air,
your hands dry and woody;

as if
you had eluded
the man in the dark hat who had been following you
all week;

the relief
of putting your fingers on the keyboard,
playing the chords of
Beethoven,
Bach,
Chopin
-------in an afternoon when I had no one to talk to,
-------when the magazine advertisement forms of soft sweaters
-------and clean shining Republican middle-class hair
-------walked into carpeted houses
-------and left me alone
-------with bare floors and a few books

I want to thank my mother
for working every day
in a drab office
in garages and water companies
cutting the cream out of her coffee at 40
to lose weight, her heavy body
writing its delicate bookkeeper’s ledgers
alone, with no man to look at her face,
her body, her prematurely white hair
in love
-------I want to thank
my mother for working and always paying for
my piano lessons
before she paid the Bank of America loan
or bought the groceries
or had our old rattling Ford repaired.

I was a quiet child,
afraid of walking into a store alone,
afraid of the water,
the sun,
the dirty weeds in back yards,
afraid of my mother’s bad breath,
and afraid of my father’s occasional visits home,
knowing he would leave again;
afraid of not having any money,
afraid of my clumsy body,
that I knew
-------no one would ever love

But I played my way
on the old upright piano
obtained for $10,
played my way through fear,
through ugliness,
through growing up in a world of dime-store purchases,
and a desire to love
a loveless world.

I played my way through an ugly face
and lonely afternoons, days, evenings, nights,
mornings even, empty
as a rusty coffee can,
played my way through the rustles of spring
and wanted everything around me to shimmer like the narrow tide
on a flat beach at sunset in Southern California,
I played my way through
an empty father’s hat in my mother’s closet
and a bed she slept on only one side of,
never wrinkling an inch of
the other side,
waiting,
waiting,

I played my way through honors in school,
the only place I could
talk
-------the classroom,
-------or at my piano lessons, Mrs. Hillhouse’s canary always
-------singing the most for my talents,
-------as if I had thrown some part of my body away upon entering
-------her house
-------and was now searching every ivory case
-------of the keyboard, slipping my fingers over black
-------ridges and around smooth rocks,
-------wondering where I had lost my bloody organs,
-------or my mouth which sometimes opened
-------like a California poppy,
-------wide and with contrasts
-------beautiful in sweeping fields,
-------entirely closed morning and night,

I played my way from age to age,
but they all seemed ageless
or perhaps always
old and lonely,
wanting only one thing, surrounded by the dusty bitter-smelling
leaves of orange trees,
wanting only to be touched by a man who loved me,
who would be there every night
to put his large strong hand over my shoulder,
whose hips I would wake up against in the morning,
whose mustaches might brush a face asleep,
dreaming of pianos that made the sound of Mozart
and Schubert without demanding
that life suck everything
out of you each day,
without demanding the emptiness
of a timid little life.

I want to thank my mother
for letting me wake her up sometimes at 6 in the morning
when I practiced my lessons
and for making sure I had a piano
to lay my school books down on, every afternoon.
I haven’t touched the piano in 10 years,
perhaps in fear that what little love I’ve been able to
pick, like lint, out of the corners of pockets,
will get lost,
slide away,
into the terribly empty cavern of me
if I ever open it all the way up again.
Love is a man
with a mustache
gently holding me every night,
always being there when I need to touch him;
he could not know the painfully loud
music from the past that
his loving stops from pounding, banging,
battering through my brain,
which does its best to destroy the precarious gray matter when I
am alone;
he does not hear Mrs. Hillhouse’s canary singing for me,
liking the sound of my lesson this week,
telling me,
confirming what my teacher says,
that I have a gift for the piano
few of her other pupils had.
When I touch the man
I love,
I want to thank my mother for giving me
piano lessons
all those years,
keeping the memory of Beethoven,
a deaf tortured man,
in mind;
-------of the beauty that can come
from even an ugly
past.


from Emerald Ice: Selected Poems 1962-1987

[ 本帖最后由 adieudusk 于 2008-9-3 09:19 编辑 ]