1、雙語閱讀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.當我翻看媽媽書架上的書時，常常會發現其中的文字缺了一部 分。其中的一個段落，或可能只是一個句子，被剪了下來，在原 來的位置上留下了一扇窗戶， 讓后一頁上的文字探頭探腦地露了 出來。被挖掉一塊的那一頁看上去就像是一幅幾乎就要完成的拼 圖作品，等待著缺失的那一塊拼圖。但那一塊拼圖并沒有丟，而且我總是知道在哪兒能找到它。在我媽媽的廚房里，從報紙上、雜志上還有書上剪下的紙片貼滿了一面墻。在她的書里，那些她最喜歡的句子和段落都被她剪了下來，貼在墻上。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.我從未當面和她說過，但她對文學作品的這種“截肢手術”的確讓 我感到震驚。我知道，安 ？帕契特、多蘿西？塞耶斯和薩默塞特?毛姆也在我身旁氣得冒煙呢，怎么能把這些他們嘔心瀝血寫出來 的文字就這樣從它們原來的位置上“截肢” 了呢！她挑出來的那些 段落也著實嚇了我一跳，比如：“以你最糟糕的

6、一面示人，因為 如果那樣人們也能容忍你的話，你就能做真正的自己了。”有時 候，我會站在那兒讀墻上那些書摘，手里拿著一本備受剪刀“迫 害”的小說，心里充滿困惑，不知道到底是什么驅使媽媽剪下了 這樣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.)我也摘錄和收藏文字，不過我的收藏更為隱秘和精致。我會用灰色的二號軟芯鉛筆把我最喜歡的句子摘抄到一

8、個活頁日記本里 事實上，這還是我媽媽送我的一份圣誕禮物呢。也就是說， 我的書都是完整的。但因為摘抄需要工夫，因此選擇哪些文字摘 抄就成了一個痛苦的過程：我是不是真的喜歡在切瑟爾海灘上 里的這兩頁文字？喜歡到我愿意一個字一個字地把它們抄下來， 直抄到手指頭都抽筋？（答案為“是”，因為這兩頁文字寫得實在 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.我媽媽一點也不知道這件事。 她不知道與剪貼相比，我更喜歡抄 錄。我壓根就沒告訴過她我也收集自己喜歡的文字。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.其實這一點沒什么值得大驚小怪的；盡管我們總是聊天，但對于 某些特定的話題，我們總是不知道該怎么開口。 媽媽和我一個星期至少會通一次電話，從某些方面來說，我們是對方最專心的聽眾。她會告訴我她在圖書館做志愿者教那些強悍的俄

12、羅斯婦女英語時發生的事；而我會和她談談我找工作的事、我的求職信，還有我想要爭取的補助什么的。我們會聊我的兄弟姐妹、 她的兄弟姐妹、總統，還有菲利普？塞默？霍夫曼的電影。我們常常逗得對方大笑，笑得我喘不過氣來，笑得她眼淚都流出來了。但我們不聊的東西也很多，多得幾個房間都裝不下。譬如她和我爸吵架了，又譬如我在學校遇到一些小挫折了。事實上，所有讓我們傷心的l“love you. ”sim plicity as if事，我們都避而不談。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.我常常說，媽媽從來沒和我說過“我愛你”。這句有點自憐的簡單 話語聽起來頗有些自我安慰的味道一一仿佛這三個字的缺失就 為我為什么成為現在的我提供了借口， 還為我贏得了同情一一于 是，我總是把這句話掛在嘴邊，就像把它貼在背上當標簽一樣。對于我和媽媽之間的這種微妙關系，我總是簡單地用一句“誰讓 她從來不說我愛你”來總結。上一次媽媽差點說出這幾個字是在 兩年前，當時她給我打電話，告訴我她有個朋友住院了。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:我對她說：“我愛你，媽媽?！倍f：“謝謝?！边@件事后來我再沒提過，但卻始終在我的腦海里盤旋不去， 我一直想知道為什么我媽媽從來不說這幾個字。幾年前，我讀到羅伯特?赫爾希寫的一首詩，詩名叫感傷的時刻或面包為什么要過馬路？，這首 詩填補了我和媽媽的對話中許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.別用面包把肚子塞滿了。我心不在焉地說。這兒的菜量大得很， 我的兒子，我那發線已開始后退少許的兒子，對我說：你怎么會 跟我說這樣的話？ 他不知道的是當我們一起散步時，當我們走 到馬路邊時，我有時會不自覺地伸出手想要去牽他的手。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 ”.這是一首樸實無華的小詩，篇幅不長，不是動人心魄的宏偉詩篇， 但讀了卻讓人感到有點心酸。我把它抄在了我的書摘日記本里， 寫的時候，手腕把灰色的鉛筆字跡都蹭模糊了。然后，我打開 封寫給媽媽的電子郵件，信已經開了頭，我在后面加上了附言:“這首詩讓我想起了你?！比缓?，我在電腦上把這首13行詩剪切6下來，粘貼在了郵件下面。我媽媽從來不讀詩或至少她從沒 告訴過我她讀詩一一所以，點下“發送”鍵時，我感到心中隱隱的 緊張和不安。She n ever men ti oned the p oem. But the n ext time I went home for vacati