A Pink Hotel in California by Margaret Atwood

我父亲用斧子砍
树叶从树上落下。
那是一九四三年。
他为过冬劈木柴。
他的枪靠在门后，
就在他鹅油抹过的工作靴旁边。
烟从金属的烟囱里冒出。
夜里我睡在一张双层床上。
波浪击湖
早晨天非常冷
我们能看见我们的呼吸
和岩石岸上的冰。
我妈妈把灰烬
从火炉里耙出来
这就是舒适平安，
空荡荡的树林里砍树的声音，
炊烟的气味。
那是一九四三年。
雨后我们生起一堆篝火。
孩子们围着它跳舞
歌唱发生在
别处的战争。
它们都怎么样了，曾经
和这样光彩夺目的天真
一起闪耀的话语？
我把它们含在嘴中翻滚像滚动弹珠，
它们尝起来很纯洁：
烟雾，枪，靴子，火炉。
火。撒播的灰烬。冬天的森林。
我坐在一间粉红色的房里；
抽屉柜有古老的人凿出的蛀洞。
不用太多
过去难道还不够吗？
那是一九四三年。
那是一九九四年，
我能听见砍树的声音。
因为海洋，
因为战争
它们不会待在波浪和落叶下。
地毯闻上去有灰烬的气味。
这就是粉红色旅馆
一切都重新浮现在心头
别的地方没有。
My father chops with his axe
and the leaves fall off the trees.
It’s nineteen forty-three.
He’s splitting wood for the winter.
His gun leans behind the door,
beside his goose-greased workboots.
Smoke comes out of the metal chimney.
At night I sleep in a bunk bed.
The waves stroke the lake.
In the mornings it is so cold
we can see our breath
and the ice on the rocky shore.
My mother rakes the ashes
out from under the oven.
This is comfort and safety,
the sound of chopping in the empty forest,
the smell of smoke.
It’s nineteen forty-three.
After it rains we have a bonfire.
The children dance around it,
singing about the war
which is happening elsewhere.
What has become of them, those words
that once shone with such
glossy innocence?
I rolled them in my mouth like marbles,
they tasted pure:
smoke, gun, boots, oven.
The fire. The scattered ashes. The winter forest.
I sit in a pink room;
the chest of drawers
has antique man-bored wormholes.
Isn’t there enough of the past
without making more?
It’s nineteen forty-three.
It’s nineteen ninety-four,
I can hear the sound of the chopping.
It’s because of the ocean,
it’s because of the war
which won’t stay under the waves and leaves.
The carpet smells of ashes.
This is the pink hotel
where everything recurs
and nothing is elsewhere.
“A Pink Hotel in California” by Margaret Atwood from Morning in the Burned House. © Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995