在湖边--乔恩.卢米斯

风，风声--
像一条旋转的链锯
飞越海湾，吹着牲畜棚。
我来这里想写写，

但代之以我一直想起
我的父亲，他，在他最后的岁月里，
手术之后，对我妈说

他不难过--他已经哭过了
当其他女人离开他时，
他和她在一起度过的时光

让他感觉比他曾经做过的
任何事情都更快乐。我的妈妈，
为他做饭，为他打扫卫生

所有那些年来，他心脏病之后
照顾他，不能理解
为什么他喜欢别的女人

多于她，
但他就那样。她告诉我
他死之后，她永远

不会去为他扫墓--一次也不会。
你认为你了解他们，
这些生物穿着

你父母皮肤的礼袍。好了，
你不了解。你不知道的是
松树想从风那里要什么东西，
.
湖是否满足于暗淡夕阳
的涂抹，是否潜鸟呼唤
其配偶，还是呼唤另一个同类。
Wind and the sound of wind—
across the bay a chainsaw revs
and stalls. I’ve come here to write,

but instead I’ve been thinking
about my father, who, in his last year,
after his surgery, told my mother

he wasn’t sorry—that he’d cried
when the other woman left him,
that his time with her

had made him happier than anything
he’d ever done. And my mother,
who cooked and cleaned for him

all those years, cared for him
after his heart attack, could not
understand why he liked the other

woman more than her,
but he did. And she told me
that after he died she never went

to visit his grave—not once.
You think you know them,
these creatures robed

in your parents’ skins. Well,
you don’t. Any more than you know
what the pines want from the wind,

if the lake’s content with this pale
smear of sunset, if the loon calls
for its mate, or for another.
“At the Lake House” by Jon Loomis from The Mansion of Happiness. © Oberlin College Press, 2016