制作：神韵之风工作室

The Ice Rider

By J. Michael Yates

Inside me

At the shore of the frozen lake

They are still talking.

We shouted, shouted,

Waved our dim lanterns over the snow.

I feel him riding through the darkness over the ice.

They say

The centre is a deep unfreezing maw.

Beneath the horse the ice mumbles and moans.

The hag scratches and suspects.

Through her snow of remembered disappointments

She curses him laughing in a warm room up the shore.

Won’t he go ‘round? The boy began.

Eyes like frozen lake with dark centers

Stopped him short.

This is one

Of many, many villages

Snowed apart around a frozen lake.

In the spring

Gone are ice, ice village, eye-like frozen lake.

And ice riders riding over the ice through the dark.

It is winter,

I listen into the wind

For hooves, for a splash, for a shout.

冰上骑者

文/叶兹（美国）

译/寄北（加拿大）

在我的心内

那个冰湖的岸边

他们还在说着

我们喊着, 叫着

在积雪上挥舞我们那半明半灭的灯笼

我能感觉到他骑着马穿过冰上的黑暗

他们说

湖中心是一张深不见底的没被冻住的嘴

而冰在马之下嘟哝和呻吟

那个丑婆子一边抓痒一边怀疑

透过她那怎么也忘不了的失望之雪

她诅咒着他在岸上暖室里的大笑

他会绕着骑过去吗？小男孩问

那些象有颗黑心的冰湖一样的眼睛

马上制止了他

这只是绕着冰湖的

被雪挡开的

很多很多小村子中的一个

春天来的时候

冰，冰之村庄，那眼睛一样被冰住的湖

穿过冰上黑暗的骑者，却都去了

现在是冬天

我把耳朵伸进风里

想听见马蹄声，溅水声，叫喊声

This is another mysterious poem of Yates. Who is the ice rider? Where is he going? Is he going to the center of the lake and die? Who are “we”? Who are “they”? Who are the hag and the boy? Of course, all those can be the single “I.” “I” long to ride “through the darkness over the ice” in the freezing cold winter. “I” need action and courage to ride “over the ice through the dark.” However, I am “they”, I am “the hag”, and I am the boy, too. “I” look, “I” suspect, “I” question, and I fear as well the winter will be gone once the spring arrives. “I” am in the winter, not sure what to do.

这是叶兹另一首神秘的诗。 谁是冰上骑手者？他去哪儿？ 他是要去湖中心寻死吗？ “我们”是谁？“他们”是谁？谁又是女巫和男孩？ 当然，所有这些人都可以是单数的“我”。“我”渴望在寒冬骑马“穿越冰上的黑暗”。 “我”需要行动和勇气才能“穿越黑暗中的冰面”。然而，我也是“他们”，我也是“女巫”，我也是男孩。 “我”看，“我”怀疑，“我”提问，我也担心一旦春天来临，冬天就会消失。 “我”在冬天，不知道该做什么。

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。