黎明
（罗伯特·布莱/作，张文武/译）
有人喜欢看海边的灌木丛在黎明中渐渐显现，
喜欢看黑夜从鹅的翅膀下降临，喜欢听
黑夜与黎明的对话。
如果我们找不到天堂，就会一直有蓝背鸟出现。
现在你知道我二十几岁时为什么一直在喊叫了。
对于那些在黎明时分被弄醒的人来说，喊叫是必须的。
亚当被召来为红翅膀的乌鸫，
菱形斑纹的响尾蛇和尾部有环纹的
浣熊命名，它们在黎明的溪流中为神沐浴。
数世纪之后，美索不达米亚的众神
清一色的鬈发，竖着耳朵出现了，身后是将军们和他们
即将在黎明时分死去的穿着蓝衣的儿子。
那些吃蚱蜢的隐士们，最好
整天待在洞中；然而，看着栅栏杆
在黎明中逐渐清晰起来，也非常美好。
那些喜欢沉落之星的人们
崇拜身上带着马厩味道的婴儿，是正常的，
然而我们知道，即便是沉落之星，也将在黎明消失。
注：这首诗每节的最后一个单词都是dawn，本应在翻译时体现这一点，但是囿于译者水平，暂时无法做到这一点，请读者原谅。凑合着读吧。呵呵。
Dawn
Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose wings, and to hear
The conversations the night sea has with the dawn.
If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who wake disturbed at dawn.
Adam was called in to name the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers, and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God in the streams at dawn.
Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up; behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons who will die at dawn.
Those grasshopper-eating hermits were so good
To stay all day in the cave; but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear at dawn.
People in love with the setting stars are right
To adore the baby who smells of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars will disappear at dawn.
[First appeared in The Paris Review, #154, Spring 2000. Thanks to the editors for permission to reprint.]
This is from a sequence of 48 poems, each of them 18 lines long, which are based loosely on the Islamic ghazal form. In its classic form, each stanza stands alone–has its own landscape, so to speak–and the theme of the poem is never stated. So the reader has much more to do than he would be used to in the contemporary English poem. When the ghazal has its full development, each stanza in a given poem ends with the same word. This collection of poems will be published by HarperCollins in April of 2001.
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