古寺——北岛

古寺

消失的钟声

结成蛛网，在裂缝的柱子里

扩散成一圈圈年轮

没有记忆，石头

空蒙的山谷里传播回声的

石头，没有记忆

当小路绕开这里的时候

龙和怪鸟也飞走了

从房檐上带走喑哑的铃铛

荒草一年一度

生长，那么漠然

不在乎它们屈从的主人

是僧侣的布鞋，还是风

石碑残缺，上面的文字已经磨损

仿佛只有在一场大火之中

才能辨认，也许

会随着一道生者的目光

乌龟在泥土中复活

驮着沉重的秘密，爬出门槛

An Ancient Temple

The long ago songs of a bell

weaved this spider web; in the column's crevices,

grown outward, one sees annual rings there for the counting.

No memories are here; stones

that merely scattered the echoes in this mountain valley,

have no memories.

That little path, even, by-passed it;

its dragons and strange birds are gone.

They took with them the silent bells that hung from the eaves.

They took the unrecorded legends of the place, too.

The words on the walls are all worn clean and torn.

Maybe if it caught on fire

one could read the words on the inside.

See the annual growths of the wild grasses,

so indifferent.

They don't care if they submit to any master,

to the shoes of the old monks,

or to the winds, either.

Out front the sky is held up by a broken stone tablet.

Still, led by the gaze of some living person,

the tortoise may revive and

come out carrying his heavy secret,

crawl right out there on the temple's threshold.