十六岁时，干草季，我帮叔叔的农场带来两位法裔加拿大人--比利.柯林斯 ...

我们中没有人料到密集的积雨云
就这样突然自动猛然打开它们的门
以至于我们不得不丢下耙子
跑着穿过田野到一个棚子
肩并肩站在白铁皮屋顶下
透过闪亮的雨幕向外望着。

我们从没有在一起度过任何时间
除了割晒干草的时候，把干草用耙子耙成堆
用干草叉铲起放进一辆破卡车，
但现在没有什么事情可做
只是看着，聆听着倾盆大雨
我们都没有说话

提供过一圈香烟之后
用一根火柴一个接一个地点燃。
None of us expected the massing thunderheads
to swing open their doors so suddenly
that we would have to drop our rakes
and run across the field to a shelter
and stand there side by side under its tin roof
looking out through a shiny curtain of rain.

We had never spent any time together
except for the haying, raking it into piles
and pitchforking it up into an old truck,
but now there was nothing to do
but watch and listen to the downpour
and nothing to say either

after the cigarettes had been offered around
and lit one by one with the flame of a single match.
“Sixteen Years Old, I Help Bring in the Hay on My Uncle John’s Farm with Two French-Canadian Workers” by Billy Collins from The Rain in Portugal. © Random House, 2016