Edict by PETR BORKOVEC Translated by Justin Quinn

诗歌，用主权的秩序作就，
关乎一大片被树林守卫的土地，
边缘有浓密的树木
找到一个出口都不可能；
粘土的表面变成砖块
悸动的影子沿着其上滑行移动；
不用说首先是云杉和落叶松，
它们低垂的枝子和草儿交织在一起
还有野蔷薇可怕的触手
它最远的部分又渐渐变黑了
在泛红的地块之间，
橡树的壁垒--柔和，虚弱--
接受灌木丛窒息的拥抱，
弯曲的桦树，在已经被大地翻起的
岩石堆中直立，
牛蒡叶子的末端被烧掉了，
白羽扇豆和毛蕊，被烧尽，
高枝之上是风的宝库
野草在风中颤抖，岌岌可危，
野草苍苍和着远方波浪的轰响。
The poem, composed by order of the sovereign,
concerned a tract of land guarded by woods,
with trees that were so thick about the edge
it was impossible to find an entrance;
and clay whose surface had turned into brick
along which pulsing shadows moved and slid;
as well as the first spruces and larches,
their lower branches woven with the grass
and with the monstrous tentacles of briars
whose furthest parts were growing back again
between the reddened patches of the ground,
and the ramparts of oaks – delicate, weak –
embraced to choking by a nameless bush,
and crooked birches, bristling from a heap
of rocks that had been churned up by the land,
of burdock leaves whose ends had been scorched off,
of the lupins and the mulleins, burned away,
and the store of air above the topmost branches
in which weeds shiver and hazard, weeds
of brightness and of distant waves of thunder.