我们之中的精灵离去了--朋友
亲戚，邻居：我们不能找到他们。
如果我们搜寻，呼唤，只有天空等着。
然后某一天这儿出现了一群仙鹤
在云朵或是薄雾上滑行--尖利，
孤独的矛，不大自然的优雅。
它们抵达陆地；他们趾高气扬地走在
犁耕过的田野上，不让我们靠近，
未必是我们自己的，未必是这个世上的。
经过的人们，靠在路边观看。
他们凝视，指点，思索。就是因为
这些旅行者，这些远方的游子，
降落，渴望一次取得联系的飞行。
他们拓展了我们的人生，
透过空间悄悄地再次出现，
不可辩驳，我们在什么地方呢。
Spirits among us have departed—friends,
relatives, neighbors: we can’t find them.
If we search and call, the sky merely waits.
Then some day here come the cranes
planing in from cloud or mist—sharp,
lonely spears, awkwardly graceful.
They reach for the land; they stalk
the ploughed fields, not letting us near,
not quite our own, not quite the world’s.
People go by and pull over to watch. They
peer and point and wonder. It is because
these travelers, these far wanderers,
plane down and yearn in a reaching
flight. They extend our life,
piercing through space to reappear
quietly, undeniably, where we are.
“Watching Sandhill Cranes” by William Stafford, from Even In Quiet Places. ? Confluence Press, 1996. Reprinted with permission of the author.
