【双语阅读】Thispoemmademethinkofyou

1、双语阅读This poem made me thi nk of youWhen I read a book from my mother 'shelves, it 'not unusual to come across a gap in the text. A p aragra ph, or maybe just a senten ce, has bee n sliced out, leav ing a win dow in its p lace, with words from the n ext p age peeping through. The chopped up p

2、age looks like a nearly complete jigsaw puzzle waiting forits miss ing p iece. But the p iece isn'lost, and I always know where to find it. Doze ns of quotati ons, cli pped from newspapers, magazines and books plaster one wall of my mother 'kitchen. What means the most to my mother in her bo

3、oks she excises and dis plays.当我翻看妈妈书架上的书时，常常会发现其中的文字缺了一部 分。其中的一个段落，或可能只是一个句子，被剪了下来，在原 来的位置上留下了一扇窗户， 让后一页上的文字探头探脑地露了 出来。被挖掉一块的那一页看上去就像是一幅几乎就要完成的拼 图作品，等待着缺失的那一块拼图。但那一块拼图并没有丢，而且我总是知道在哪儿能找到它。在我妈妈的厨房里，从报纸上、杂志上还有书上剪下的纸片贴满了一面墙。在她的书里，那些她最喜欢的句子和段落都被她剪了下来，贴在墙上。I 'e never told her, but those literary ampu

4、tationsappall me. I know Ann Patchett and Dorothy Sayers, and SomersetMaugham would fume alon gside me, their careful p rose severed from its rightful p lace. She p icks extracts that startle me, too: Put your worst foot forward, because the n if people can still stand you, you can be yourself. ” So

5、metimes I stand read ing the wall of quotatio ns, holdi ng a scissors-victim novel in my hand, pu zzli ng over what draws my mother to these p articular words.我从未当面和她说过，但她对文学作品的这种“截肢手术”的确让 我感到震惊。我知道，安 ？帕契特、多萝西？塞耶斯和萨默塞特?毛姆也在我身旁气得冒烟呢，怎么能把这些他们呕心沥血写出来 的文字就这样从它们原来的位置上“截肢” 了呢！她挑出来的那些 段落也着实吓了我一跳，比如：“以你最糟糕的

6、一面示人，因为 如果那样人们也能容忍你的话，你就能做真正的自己了。”有时 候，我会站在那儿读墙上那些书摘，手里拿着一本备受剪刀“迫 害”的小说，心里充满困惑，不知道到底是什么驱使妈妈剪下了 这样一些稀奇古怪的句子。My own quotati on collecti on is more hidde n and delicate. I copy favorite lines into a spi ral-bo und journ al-a Christmas p rese nt from my mother, actually in soft, gray No. 2 pen cil.This

7、means my books rema in whole. The labor required makes2selection a cutthroat process: Do I really love these two pages of On Chesil Beach eno ugh to tran scribe them, word by fin ger-cra mping word? (The an swer was yes, the p ages werethat exquisite.)我也摘录和收藏文字，不过我的收藏更为隐秘和精致。我会用灰色的二号软芯铅笔把我最喜欢的句子摘抄到一

8、个活页日记本里 事实上，这还是我妈妈送我的一份圣诞礼物呢。也就是说， 我的书都是完整的。但因为摘抄需要工夫，因此选择哪些文字摘 抄就成了一个痛苦的过程：我是不是真的喜欢在切瑟尔海滩上 里的这两页文字？喜欢到我愿意一个字一个字地把它们抄下来， 直抄到手指头都抽筋？（答案为“是”，因为这两页文字写得实在 太美了。）My mother doesn 'know any of this. She doesn 'know I prefercopying out to cutt ing out. Ive n ever told her thatI com pile quotati ons a

9、t all.我妈妈一点也不知道这件事。 她不知道与剪贴相比，我更喜欢抄 录。我压根就没告诉过她我也收集自己喜欢的文字。There 'nothing very shocking about that; for all our chatting, we don ' have the words to beg in certa in con versatio ns. My mother and I talk on the phone at least once a week, and in some ways, we are each other 'most dedicate

10、d liste ner. She tells me about teaching English to the leathery Russian ladies3at the library where she volun teers; I tell her about job app licati ons, cover letters, and a grant I 'like to wi n. We talk about my sibli ngs, her sibli ngs, the p reside nt, and Phili pSeymour Hoffma n movies. W

11、e make each other laugh so hard that I choke and she cries. But what we don ' say could fill up rooms. Fights with my father. Small failures in school. Anything, really, that p ierces us.其实这一点没什么值得大惊小怪的；尽管我们总是聊天，但对于 某些特定的话题，我们总是不知道该怎么开口。 妈妈和我一个星期至少会通一次电话，从某些方面来说，我们是对方最专心的听众。她会告诉我她在图书馆做志愿者教那些强悍的俄

12、罗斯妇女英语时发生的事；而我会和她谈谈我找工作的事、我的求职信，还有我想要争取的补助什么的。我们会聊我的兄弟姐妹、 她的兄弟姐妹、总统，还有菲利普？塞默？霍夫曼的电影。我们常常逗得对方大笑，笑得我喘不过气来，笑得她眼泪都流出来了。但我们不聊的东西也很多，多得几个房间都装不下。譬如她和我爸吵架了，又譬如我在学校遇到一些小挫折了。事实上，所有让我们伤心的l“love you. ”sim plicity as if事，我们都避而不谈。I like to say that my mother has n ever told meThere 'something reassuring in it

13、s self-pitying the three-word abse nee explains who I am and wi ns me symp athy-so I carry it with me, like a label on my back. I4syn thesize our cumbersome relati onship with an easyshorthand: my mother never saidl“love you ”.The last time my mother almost sp oke the words was two years ago, whe n

14、she called to tell me that a frie nd had bee n hos pitalized.我常常说，妈妈从来没和我说过“我爱你”。这句有点自怜的简单 话语听起来颇有些自我安慰的味道一一仿佛这三个字的缺失就 为我为什么成为现在的我提供了借口， 还为我赢得了同情一一于 是，我总是把这句话挂在嘴边，就像把它贴在背上当标签一样。对于我和妈妈之间的这种微妙关系，我总是简单地用一句“谁让 她从来不说我爱你”来总结。上一次妈妈差点说出这几个字是在 两年前，当时她给我打电话，告诉我她有个朋友住院了。I said, “love you, Mom. ” She said, Than

15、k you. ” I haven'tsaid it since, but I ve thought about it, and Ive wondered why my mother doesn t.A couple of years ago, I found a poem byRobert Hersh on calledSen time ntal Mome nt or Why Did theBaguette Cross the Road? ” that supplied words for the blank sp aces I try to un dersta nd in our c

16、on versatio ns:我对她说：“我爱你，妈妈。”而她说：“谢谢。”这件事后来我再没提过，但却始终在我的脑海里盘旋不去， 我一直想知道为什么我妈妈从来不说这几个字。几年前，我读到罗伯特?赫尔希写的一首诗，诗名叫感伤的时刻或面包为什么要过马路？，这首 诗填补了我和妈妈的对话中许多我不能理解的空白:5Don 'fill up on bread. I say absent-mindedly. The servingshere are huge. My son, whose hair may bereced ing a bit, says: Did you really just sa

17、y that to me? What he doesn 'knowis that when we 're walking together, when we get to the curb. I sometimes start to reachfor his hand.别用面包把肚子塞满了。我心不在焉地说。这儿的菜量大得很， 我的儿子，我那发线已开始后退少许的儿子，对我说：你怎么会 跟我说这样的话？ 他不知道的是当我们一起散步时，当我们走 到马路边时，我有时会不自觉地伸出手想要去牵他的手。It 'a humble p oem, small in scope, not t

18、he stuff of epic heartbreak, yet poignant. After copying it dow n in my quotati on journ al, my wrist smudg ing the pen cil into a gray haze as I wrote, I opened an e-mail I had beg un to my mother, andadded a postscript:This poem made me think of you,” withthe 13 lines cut and p asted below. My mot

19、her does n'readp oetry or at least, she does n 'tell me that she readspoetry-and I felt nervous clicking,Send ”.这是一首朴实无华的小诗，篇幅不长，不是动人心魄的宏伟诗篇， 但读了却让人感到有点心酸。我把它抄在了我的书摘日记本里， 写的时候，手腕把灰色的铅笔字迹都蹭模糊了。然后，我打开 封写给妈妈的电子邮件，信已经开了头，我在后面加上了附言:“这首诗让我想起了你。”然后，我在电脑上把这首13行诗剪切6下来，粘贴在了邮件下面。我妈妈从来不读诗或至少她从没 告诉过我她读诗一一所以，点下“发送”键时，我感到心中隐隐的 紧张和不安。She n ever men ti oned the p oem. But the n ext time I went home for vacati