挖掘--谢默斯.稀尼

我的大拇指和手指之间
捏着一只粗笔；像藏着一只枪。

我的窗户下面，一阵清晰粗砺的响声
此时铁铲沉入含砂砾的土地：
我的父亲，挖掘着。我朝下看

直至看见他绷紧的屁股蛋子在花圃之中。
下弯腰，伸上来，二十年来
有节奏的通过土豆条播沟
他正在那里掘地。

粗糙的靴子安防在连凸耳片上，靠在
内膝盖上的轴坚定地被撬动。
他挖出高垄，把明亮的边缘深埋
撒播上我们挑选的新土豆，
爱它们在我手中又凉又硬的味儿。

上帝作证，这位老人能操纵一只铁锹。
就像他的老人。

我祖父在陶纳沼泽区，一天比任何其他男人
割的草皮都多
曾经我给他带来一瓶牛奶
马虎地用纸塞着瓶子。他直起身子
一饮而尽，然后立马又干起来
利索地切削，举到他的肩上，沉下去，沉下去
为了好草皮。挖掘。

土豆霉菌冷冷的气味，
湿软的泥炭沼噗嗤，呱唧声，
草率地修剪一条边缘，贯穿我脑中
唤醒一条生命之根。
但我没有铁锹仿效像他们那样的男人。

在我的大拇指和手指之间
捏着粗笔
我要用它挖掘。
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
“Digging” by Seamus Heaney from Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996. © Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998