希望--利塞尔.穆勒

它盘旋在黑暗的角落
在灯被打开之前，
其眼中忽闪着睡意
从蘑菇的菌皱里滴下，
在蒲公英星光熠熠的脑袋上爆炸
释放到鼠尾草上，
它粘到从枫树梢头飘下的
绿衣天使的翅膀上。

在有许多芽眼的土豆
闭合的眼睛里抽芽，
它住在蚯蚓的每一段环节中
残酷地生存，
它在一条狗身上
从眼睛到尾巴的运动
它是让刚出生的孩子
双肺扩张的嘴。

它是奇特的礼物
我们不能自己破坏，
驳斥死神的辩论，
天才发明的未来，
我们都熟知的上帝。

它是让我们发誓
不背叛彼此的血清；
它就在这首诗中，试着说出来。
It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
     it shakes sleep from its eyes
     and drops from mushroom gills,
          it explodes in the starry heads
          of dandelions turned sages,
               it sticks to the wings of green angels
               that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
     it lives in each earthworm segment
     surviving cruelty,
          it is the motion that runs
          from the eyes to the tail of a dog,
               it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
               of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.
“Hope” by Lisel Mueller from Alive Together. © Louisiana State University Press, 1996. Reprinted by permission.