In winter two kinds of fields on the hills
outside Prosser: fields of new green wheat, the slips
rising overnight out of the plowed ground,
and waiting,
and then rising again, and budding.
Geese love this green wheat.
I ate some of it once too, to see.
And wheat stubble-fields that reach to the river.
These are the fields that have lost everything.
At night they try to recall their youth,
but their breathing is slow and irregular as
their life sinks into dark furrows.
Geese love this shattered wheat also.
They will die for it.
But everything is forgotten, nearly everything,
and sooner rather than later, please God—
fathers, friends, they pass
into your life and out again, a few women stay
a while, then go, and the fields
turn their backs, disappear in rain.
Everything goes, but Prosser.
Those nights driving back through miles of wheat fields—
headlamps raking the fields on the curves—
Prosser, that town, shining as we break over hills,
heater rattling, tired through to bone,
the smell of gunpowder on our fingers still:
I can barely see him, my father, squinting
through the windshield of that cab, saying, Prosser.
辛波斯卡在A Tale Began中说:The world is never ready for the birth of a new baby。每一个孩子的诞生,都是一种偶然。没有人能为一个孩子的诞生,做好足够的准备。可造物却早为每一件事情的结束做好了准备,而且,给每一个孩子都已经画好了一份不可更改也无法预料的蓝图。
首先,野鹅这一意象,我认为并不一定是必要。放在此处也有些意义上的含混。Geese love this shattered wheat also. They will die for it.野鹅也喜欢碎麦粒,它们愿意为它而死。当然这样的句子会有很多人喜欢。这一句话是相当的煽情的。但这到底是要说什么呢?而前面还有:Geese love this green wheat。野鹅爱这些绿色的麦粒。那时卡佛满心的爱意和伤感,所以发现野鹅即爱这些新生的绿色麦粒,也爱成熟的碎麦粒。野鹅热爱生活,和生命的美丽。啊!很多时候我会感到口渴。而接下来那一大段,走进来,走出去,停了一会,又走了,就真的就有些罗嗦了。