Plath: Elm

Sylvia Plath Collected Poems
No. 163

　　　　Elm
　　　　　　For Ruth Fainlight

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, this big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches?—

Its snaky acids hiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　19 April 1962


普拉斯《诗全编》
第163首

　　　榆树
　　　　　——致茹丝•芬莱特

我了解那底部，她说。我以巨大的主根了解它：
那是你的恐惧所在。
我不怕它：我已去过。

你在我深处听到的可是大海，
以及它的不满？
或是虚空之声，你的疯狂？

爱是一个影子。
你撒着谎，哭喊着穷追不舍。
听啊：它的蹄声。它已经跑开，像一匹马。

我也将彻夜这样奔腾，狂野地，
直到你的头化为石头，枕头化为一方小小的赛马场，
回响，回响。

或者，我应给你带来毒药的声音？
它现在化作雨了，这巨大的静寂。
这就是它的果实：锡白色，像砒霜。

我已饱经日落的暴行。
我红色的丝
烤焦到根部，燃烧，竖起，一只铁丝的手。

现在，我断成碎片，棍棒似地飞散出去。
如此暴力的风
不会容忍旁观：我必须尖叫。

月亮也绝不仁慈：她会拖住我，
残酷地，因为她不育。
她的辐射灼伤了我。或许，是我不放过她。

我放她走了。我放走了她，
萎缩了，干瘪了，像经过了彻底的手术。
你的恶梦占有了我，也馈赠我。

我被一种啼哭附了身。
它夜夜扑闪而出，
以它的钩爪，寻找值得一爱的东西。

这黑暗的东西睡在我的体内，
吓得我魂不附体；
我整天都感到它轻柔的羽毛似的转动，它的恶毒。

云朵飘过，云朵疏散。
那些一去不回的苍白，都是爱的面孔吗？
我心神不宁，是否因为这一切？

我无力承受更多知识。
这是什么，这张充满杀机
被树枝掐住的脸，是什么？——

它毒蛇的酸液嘶嘶有声。
它僵化着意志。这些孤立的、迟缓的缺陷
能够致命，致命，致命。
　　　　　　　　　1962年4月19日