Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Plath: Poppies in October

Sylvia Plath Collected Poems
No. 195

  Poppies in October

Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly------

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.
            27 October 1962

普拉斯《诗全编》
第195首

  十月的罂粟花

甚至连今晨的阳光云也不能对付这些裙子。
救护车里的那女人也不能
她红色的心开花,透过外衣,真令人惊异——

一件礼物,爱的礼物,
绝对是不请自到,
由天空

点燃它苍白、
烈焰似的一氧化碳,由眼睛
钝化成礼帽下的停顿。

哦,我的上帝,我算什么,
一旦这些迟来的嘴嗷嗷洞开
在霜冻的森林、在矢车菊的黎明。
        1962年10月27日

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