Night School

露易丝·格丽克（Louise Glück），美国当代女诗人，2003－2004年美国桂冠诗人。

I am against

symmetry, he said. He was holding in both hands

an unbalanced piece of wood that had been

very large once, like the limb of a tree:

this was before its second life in the water,

after which, though there was less of it

in terms of mass, there was greater

spiritual density. Driftwood,

he said, confirms my view—this is why it seems

inherently dramatic. To make this point,

he tapped the wood. Rather violently, it seemed,

because a piece broke off.

Movement! he cried. That is the lesson! Look at these paintings,

he said, meaning ours. I have been making art

longer than you have been breathing

and yet my canvases have life, they are drowning

in life—Here he grew silent.

I stood beside my work, which now seemed rigid and lifeless.

We will take our break now, he said.

I stepped outside, for a moment, into the night air.

It was a cold night. The town was on a beach,

near where the wood had been.

I felt I had no future at all.

I had tried and I had failed.

I had mistaken my failures for triumphs.

The phrase smoke and mirrors entered my head.

And suddenly my teacher was standing beside me,

smoking a cigarette. He had been smoking for many years,

his skin was full of wrinkles.

You were right, he said, the way

instinctively you stepped aside.

Not many do that, you’ll notice.

The work will come, he said. The lines

will emerge from the brush. He paused here

to gaze calmly at the sea in which, now,

all the planets were reflected. The driftwood

is just a show, he said; it entertains the children.

Still, he said, it is rather beautiful, I think,

like those misshapen trees the Chinese grow.

Pun-sai, they’re called. And he handed me

the piece of driftwood that had broken off.

Start small, he said. And patted my shoulder.