Always and Never Enough
美丽人生
Anonymous/佚名
It is a warm afternoon,incandescent.Each leaf looks lit from within.I‘m walking home across a field when I see a small brown head poking out of a patch of low bush blueberries.The creature doesn’t flee as I approach and suddenly stop,astonished.It is a fawn,sleek and newly minted,regarding me from the spot where it landed on earth.We both stare.The fawn tests my scent,flaring its nostrils as I slowly back away.The next morning it‘s gone,but there’s a small,oval depression on the ground.I press my hands into the flattened bushes.
一个炽热的午后。每片树叶都像着了火一样。回家的路上,我穿过田野,忽然看见一只褐色的小脑袋从蓝莓丛中探了出来。我慢慢地靠近,奇怪的是,小家伙并不逃跑,我便赶紧停下来。这是一只不满周岁的小鹿,皮毛柔滑发亮。它目不转睛地盯着我,相互凝视片刻,我慢慢地后退,它却张开鼻孔凑上前来,嗅了嗅我。第二天早上,它不见了,但地上留下了一个小而圆的印迹,我把双手轻轻放在被它压平的矮树丛上。
Though I cross that corner of the field nearly every day,I‘ve not seen another fawn since.That’s the way it is with wonder.
When my husband and I moved to this skinny finger of Maine five years ago,we immediately set out on foot to explore the half-wild land and shore around our rented house.Like the wild creatures here,we have worn our own surreptitious trail through fields and woods,a mile-long path we call“the loop”.It passes within a few feet of where that fawn was born.
后来,尽管我几乎每天都穿行于田野,却再也没见到小鹿,上次算是奇遇了。
五年前,我和丈夫搬到缅因州这片贫瘠的土地上,刚安顿下来,我们就去寓所附近的原始地带徒步探险。和这里的野生动物一样,我们在田野和丛林中开辟了一条自己的秘密通道,美其名日“幽径”,一英里长,距小鹿出生地只有几英尺远。
I am walking past this spot again,on a cool spring evening,my brain still buzzing with the distractions of the day.A white throated sparrow calls from a spruce,releasing its song of longing.As I whistle back,the notes carry me out of my head sparrow‘s song is the Buddhist’s bell.Attention please,your presence is requested in the here and now,I am trying to show up.
一个凉爽的春日傍晚,我再次经过这里,脑子里充斥着白天的忧愁。远处,一只白喉雀在云杉之巅放声唱着希望之歌,歌声清新悦耳,有如天籁,我吹着口哨回应它,这些音符顿时让我忘却烦忧,全身心地融入了美妙的世界。此时此刻,此景此情,亲爱的读者,我要将这美好的一切展示给您了。
As I enter the woods strands of spider‘s silk cling to my face.The air smells of balsam.Coyotes have traveled this path,leaving twists of scat flecked with bone in the middle of the trail.A pack roamed this peninsula last fall,waking us all in the middle of the night with their yippees and howls,and taking cats,including mine.I never found his bones,so I buried crocus bulbs instead.I don’t blame the coyotes any more than the sharp-shinned hawk that stalks chickadees at our birdfeeder.It is the oldest way.Blood into feather,berry into fight.
迈入丛林,偶尔,有几缕蛛丝拂过脸庞。空气中弥漫着凤仙花的馨香。小路上散落着野狼的杰作——骨头。去年秋天,半岛上野狼成群,午夜的狼嚎声令人发怵。它们偷吃家猫.我的也未能幸免,连尸骨都没找到,我以番红花苞代之葬于地。我并不记恨野狼,就像宽恕捕猎山雀的凶猛老鹰一样,我知道,这是自然界最古老的法则——弱肉强食。
The more I walk this small circle of the planet,the more it calls me.I am out here at all hours,in all seasons,following intimations of mystery in the rustling of leaves,a slant of light,a flash of feathers.I couldn‘t tell you exactly what I’m looking for.Only that I‘ve been searching since I can remember,and that what reveals itself is always and never enough.
徜徉于这小小的星际,时间越长,我就越无法自拔,它的确有着非凡的吸引力。我整日漫游于此,在沙沙作响的树叶中;在斜照的日光下;在一闪而过的羽翼里,探寻神秘背后的启示。我无法确定自己要找些什么,只知道记忆深处,有某种东西促使自己不断地探索,因为大自然本身就蕴涵着无穷无尽。
Life converges in these woods.Deer rut in the fall and drop fawns in the spring,unceremoniously,in the middle of the field.Salamander and frog eggs swell and hatch in vernal pools.Underground,the trees share nutrients with their neighbors through an unimaginably vast and invisible network of fungi.
丛林里生机勃勃,鹿儿秋天交配,春天生子,旷野中随处可见它们的身影。春季。蝾螈和青蛙的幼体在温暖的水塘中成长。地下,树木通过一张无边无形的真菌网.共享多种养分。