俚优

被人理解是何等奇妙的事呢？可能正如不被理解一样美妙吧。

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How Wonderful

BY IRVING FELDMAN

How wonderful to be understood,

to just sit here while some kind person

relieves you of the awful burden

of having to explain yourself, of having

to find other words to say what you meant,

or what you think you thought you meant,

and of the worse burden of finding no words,

of being struck dumb . . . because some bright person

has found just the right words for you—and you

have only to sit here and be grateful

for words so quiet so discerning they seem

not words but literate light, in which

your merely lucid blossoming grows lustrous.

How wonderful that is!

And how altogether wonderful it is

not to be understood, not at all, to, well,

just sit here while someone not unkindly

is saying those impossibly wrong things,

or quite possibly they’re the right things

if you are, which you’re not, that someone

—a difference, finally, so indifferent

it would be conceit not to let it pass,

unkindness, really, to spoil someone’s fun.

And so you don’t mind, you welcome the umbrage

of those high murmurings over your head,

having found, after all, you are grateful

—and you understand this, how wonderful!—

that you’ve been led to be quietly yourself,

like a root growing wise in darkness

under the light litter, the falling words.

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何等美妙

埃尔文·费尔德曼

被理解是何等美妙，

仅是坐在这里，让那些善良人

把你从必须解释自己的重担下释放，

从寻找其他词语来表达你的意思、

或你以为你想的意思的重担里释放，

从无法找到任何词语、只能哑口无言

这样更沉的重担下释放……因为某些明慧的人

早已为你找到了最精准的词——而你

只用安歇于此，感恩于心

感恩那些安静却敏锐的词语，它们

不像词，更像是文学之光，

你只需明媚绽放，成长光辉。

那是何等美妙！

同样何等美妙的

还有不被理解，完全不被理解，对着，嘛，

就坐在这儿吧，当某个不怀好意的家伙

说着那些不可思议的糟糕事，

或者可能它们都是正确事儿

如果你是——虽然你并不是——那个家伙

新奇，却终归漠然

不让其通过便是一种自负，

破坏了别人的乐趣，说真的，不厚道。

所以，如果你不介意，就欢迎这种不满吧，

对着那群在你头顶高高嗡鸣的家伙，

毕竟，你已经发现，你心怀感激

——且你明白这一点，何等美妙！——

你知道你被引导着，平静地做你自己，

如根茎在黑暗中聪慧地生长

在光明的凌乱下，在飘落的文字下。

译：俚优