制作：神韵之风工作室
It Hardly Matters

 By J. Michael. Yates

It hardly matters now.

Now that the ring

Of bright blue

Violet fire horizon

Has gone out.

It hardly matters now

That the hedge of flame

I called “horizon” is gone,

That things that have always

Mattered have never mattered.

That is hardly matters

Now and now and now

Is a golden animal

That glows almost

In this tightening dark.

基本上没什么好在乎了

 文/叶兹（美国）

译者/寄北（加拿大）

现在基本上没什么好在乎了

既然现在那圈

明亮的蓝紫色的

火一样的地平线

已消失无踪

现在基本上没什么好在乎了

既然现在那个也被我称做地平线的

火之围墙也不见了,

既然那些从来都很重要的事情

居然从来没有重要过

真没有什么好在乎了

现在，现在，现在

是一个金色的动物

就在这越来越令人窒息的黑暗里

就要闪闪发亮

This is a despairing poem about losing beliefs. The poet uses “Horizon” for two totally opposite symbolic meanings: freedom and restriction. When losing freedom, nothing matters; when losing restriction, nothing matters, either. This sounds contradictory, but the underlining truth is obvious: polarity is essential to our lives. What is worse: when God is replaced by a golden calf, nothing hardly matters anymore.

这首诗写的是失去信仰的绝望。 诗人用“地平线”来表达两个完全相反的象征意义：自由和限制。 失去自由时，意义也消失了；失去限制时，关系也不大。 这听起来很矛盾，但强调的事实是显而易见的：两极性对我们的生活至关重要。 更糟糕的是：当上帝被金牛犊所取代时，再也没有什么需要在乎了。

【诗人简介】叶兹（1938-2019）: 出生于美国密苏里州，密西根大学比较文学博士。他的作品面很广，涉及诗歌，小说，戏剧，翻译，哲学散文等诸多领域。他得奖无数，包括有名的ＨＯＰＷＯＯＤ奖（诗歌和戏剧两项）及密苏里大学的终生成就奖。著名的美国戏剧家阿瑟米勒对他赞赏有加，称他在危险的主题和对话方面“无所畏惧”。他的作品已被翻译成多种东方语言和几乎所有的西方语言。他曾在美国和加拿大多所大学做教授，也当过伐木工人，摩托车赛车手，电台主管，摄影师，出版商，甚至监狱看守等。退休后他和他的中国太太在他们的温哥华家里教授语言（他翻译１７种文字）及其它课目直至2019年四月去世。

J. Michael Yates (1938-2019) was born in the Ozak Mountains of Missouri and did graduate degrees at the Universities of Missouri and Michigan. He was a widely published author of poetry, fiction, drama, translations, and philosophical essays. His works has been translated into most of the western languages and several of the eastern ones, and his drama for radio, television, and stage had been produced both nationally and internationally. He had won many literary prizes, including the Major Hopwood Awards (both poetry and drama the same year) and the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts and Sciences from University of Missouri. Arthur Miller called him “fearless in matters of dangerous themes and dialogue.” He taught many universities in the United States and Canada, and his last rank as a university professor was Distinguished Professor. He had also been a logger, a motorcycle racer, a broadcast executive, a commercial photographer, and a Maximum Security Prison Guard and SWAT team member. He and his Chinese wife taught languages (he translated 17 languages), history of ideas, and science in their Vancouver home until he passed away in April 2019.  

【诗译者简介】寄北，上海第二军医大学MD，加拿大New Brunswick大学PhD，多伦多大学Post-Dr. 现居温哥华。写作已有些时日，仍属业余爱好。