丹雅·蜜凯尔诗4首
珠宝
它不再耸立于河上
不再存在城市里
不再存在地图上
那座曾经存在的桥梁
那座我们曾天天经过的桥梁
那座桥
战争把它抛掷进河里
一如那位铁达尼号上的女士
抛掷她那蓝色的钻石
装骨头的袋子
运气真好！
她找到了他的骨头。
头颅也在袋子里，
袋子在她的手里
就像其他所有的袋子
在其他所有颤抖的手里。
他的骨头，和万人冢里的
数千块尸骨一样，
他的头颅，不同于其他任何头颅。
两个眼睛，或者窟窿，
让他看得太多，
两个耳朵，
让他聆听到
述说自己故事的音乐，
一个鼻子，
从不知干净空气为何物，
一张嘴，开启如坑沟，
它不是那个样子，当他亲吻她时，
在那里，静静地，
不像在这个地方
嘈杂不堪，充斥着随头颅和尸骨和尘土
而挖出的问题：
这有何意义——在一个黑暗戏耍这一切
寂静的地方如是死去？
这有何意义——现在才得以在这些
凹陷的地方和所爱的人相见？
在死去的时候
还给你的母亲
一把她在生你时
给予你的骨头？
离开，没有出生或死亡证书，
因为独裁者在取你的命时，
是不会发给收据的。
独裁者也有一颗心，
一个气球，永不爆破。
他也有一颗头颅，巨大的一颗，
不同于其他任何头颅。
他自行解答了一道数学题：
一个死亡乘以一百万
等于家国。
独裁者是一出大型悲剧的导演。
他也有观众，
这群观众会鼓掌
直到骨头开始嘎嘎作响——
袋子里的骨头，
她终于拿在手里的满满一袋，
不像那尚未找到自己袋子的
她失望灰心的邻居。
鞋匠
一名熟练的鞋匠
终其一生
他用力捶打铁钉
整平皮革
为各式各样的脚：
出发的脚
踢打的脚
横冲直撞的脚
追赶的脚
奔跑的脚
践踏的脚
瘫软的脚
跳跃的脚
跌倒的脚
静止不动的脚
颤抖的脚
跳舞的脚
归来的脚……
在鞋匠手里
生命是一堆铁钉。
战争孜孜不倦
战争多么壮观！
多么渴切
又有效率！
大清早
它就叫醒警铃
并且派遣救护车
到各个地方，
它在空中摇晃尸体，
将担架滚动到伤员处，
自母亲的眼眸
召唤雨水，
它深掘地面
自废墟底下
挖出许多东西……
有些僵死又发亮，
有些苍白却依然跳动……
它在小孩的心灵
制造出最多的问题，
它将烟火和飞弹发射
到空中
以娱乐众神，
它在田野播下地雷
然后收割戳伤和脓疱，
它迫使许多家庭移民，
他站在教士身旁
在他们诅咒恶魔的时候
（可怜的恶魔，他的一只手
还搁在灼烫的火里）……
战争孜孜不倦，日以继夜地。
它激发暴君们
发表冗长的演说，
颁发奖章给将军们，
赐予诗人们主题。
它对义肢制造业
贡献良多，
供给苍蝇食物，
让史书增添页数，
在杀戮者与被杀者之间
找到平等点，
教导恋人们写信，
让少妇们习惯等待，
用短文和照片
填满报纸，
替孤儿
建造新的房舍，
振奋棺木制造者，
轻轻拍打
掘坟者的背部，
并且在领导者的脸上
涂上一抹微笑。
战争孜孜不倦，其勤奋无人能比！
却没有人给它
只字词组的赞美。
陈 黎、张 芬 龄 / 译
Iraqi American poet Dunya Mikhail was born in Baghdad and earned a BA at the University of Baghdad. She worked as a translator and journalist for the Baghdad Observer before being placed on Saddam Hussein’s enemies list. She immigrated to the United States in the mid-1990s and earned an MA at Wayne State University. Mikhail is the author of several collections of poetry published in Arabic. Her first book published in English, The War Works Hard (2005), translated by Elizabeth Winslow, won the PEN Translation Award, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and was selected as one of the 25 Best Books of 2005 by the New York Public Library. Elena Chiti translated The War Works Hard into Italian in 2011. Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea (2009), which Mikhail co-translated with Elizabeth Winslow, won the Arab American Book Award. Mikhail's collection of poetry The Iraqi Nights (2014) was translated into English by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and published by New Directions. She is also the author of a book of nonfiction, The Beekeeper (New Directions, 2018).
With irony and subversive simplicity, Mikhail addresses themes of war, exile, and loss, using forms such as reportage, fable, and lyric. Though her poetry records the traumas of war and exile, she has also spoken to the effects of censorship on her work. In an interview with Cathy Linh Che for the New Directions blog, Mikhail observed, “In Iraq, there was a department of censorship with actual employees whose job was to watch ‘public morals’ and decide what you should read and write. Every writer needed approval first before publishing. That’s why I used a lot of metaphors and layers of meanings. This was probably good for my poetry but, still, you do not want to use such figures of speech just to hide meanings. Here, in America, a word does not usually cost a poet her life. However, speech is sometimes limited to what is acceptable according to public norms. So, in Iraq, text precedes censorship. In America, censorship precedes the text.”
Mikhail’s honors include the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. She lives in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and has taught at Michigan State University.
The Iraqi Nights
BY DUNYA MIKHAIL
KAREEM JAMES ABU-ZEID
1.
In the first year of war
they played “bride and groom”
and counted everything on their fingers:
their faces reflected in the river;
the waves that swept away their faces
before disappearing;
and the names of newborns.
Then the war grew up
and invented a new game for them:
the winner is the one
who returns from the journey
alone,
full of stories of the dead
as the passing wings flutter
over the broken trees;
and now the winner must tow the hills of dust
so lightly that no one feels it;
and now the winner wears a necklace
with half a metal heart for a pendant,
and the task to follow
is to forget the other half.
The war grew old
and left the old letters,
the calendars and newspapers,
to turn yellow
with the news,
with the numbers,
and with the names
of the players.
2.
Five centuries have passed
since Scheherazade told her tale.
Baghdad fell,
and they forced me to the underworld.
I watch the shadows
as they pass behind the wall:
none look like Tammuz.
He would cross thousands of miles
for the sake of a single cup of tea
poured by my own hand.
I fear the tea is growing cold:
cold tea is worse than death.
3.
I would not have found this cracked jar
if it weren’t for my loneliness,
which sees gold in all that glitters.
Inside the jar is the magic plant
that Gilgamesh never stopped looking for.
I’ll show it to Tammuz when he comes,
and we’ll journey, as fast as light,
to all the continents of the world,
and all who smell it will be cured
or freed,
or will know its secret.
I don’t want Tammuz to come too late
to hear my urgent song.
4.
When Tammuz comes
I’ll also give him all the lists I made
to pass the time:
lists of food,
of books,
lost friends,
favorite songs,
list of cities to see before one dies,
and lists of ordinary things
with notes to prove
that we are still alive.
5.
It’s as if I’m hearing music in the boat’s hull,
as if I can smell the river, the lily, the fish,
as if I’m touching the skies that fall from the words “I love you,”
as if I can see those tiny notes that are read over and over again,
as if I’m living the lives of birds who bear nothing but their feathers.
6.
The earth circled the sun
once more
and not a cloud
nor wind
nor country
passed through my eyes.
My shadow,
imprisoned in Aladdin’s lamp,
mirrors the following:
a picture of the world with you inside,
light passing through a needle’s eye,
scrawlings akin to cuneiform,
hidden paths to the sun,
dried clay,
tranquil Ottoman pottery,
and a huge pomegranate, its seeds
scattered all over Uruk.
7.
In Iraq,
after a thousand and one nights,
someone will talk to someone else.
Markets will open
for regular customers.
Small feet will tickle
the giant feet of the Tigris.
Gulls will spread their wings
and no one will fire at them.
Women will walk the streets
without looking back in fear.
Men will give their real names
without putting their lives at risk.
Children will go to school
and come home again.
Chickens in the villages
won't peck at human flesh
on the grass.
Disputes will take place
without any explosives.
A cloud will pass over cars
heading to work as usual.
A hand will wave
to someone leaving
or returning.
The sunrise will be the same
for those who wake
and those never will.
And every moment
something ordinary
will happen
under the sun.
In the Aquarium
BY DUNYA MIKHAIL
KAREEM JAMES ABU-ZEID
A fish
meets another fish
and lays eggs.
As its fins signal to the seaweed
its colors come out
one after the other.
Its bubbles are words
meant for no one.
The world rises and falls
each day
through the eyes of a fish.
I Was In A Hurry
BY DUNYA MIKHAIL
TRANSLATED BY ELIZABETH WINSLOW
Yesterday I lost a country.
I was in a hurry,
and didn't notice when it fell from me
like a broken branch from a forgetful tree.
Please, if anyone passes by
and stumbles across it,
perhaps in a suitcase
open to the sky,
or engraved on a rock
like a gaping wound,
or wrapped
in the blankets of emigrants,
or canceled
like a losing lottery ticket,
or helplessly forgotten
in Purgatory,
or rushing forward without a goal
like the questions of children,
or rising with the smoke of war,
or rolling in a helmet on the sand,
or stolen in Ali Baba's jar,
or disguised in the uniform of a policeman
who stirred up the prisoners
and fled,
or squatting in the mind of a woman
who tries to smile,
or scattered
like the dreams
of new immigrants in America.
If anyone stumbles across it,
return it to me, please.
Please return it, sir.
Please return it, madam.
It is my country. . .
I was in a hurry
when I lost it yesterday.
The Artist Child
BY DUNYA MIKHAIL
—I want to draw the sky.
—Draw it, my darling.
—I have.
—And why do you spread
the colors this way?
—Because the sky
has no edges.
. . .
—I want to draw the earth.
—Draw it, my darling.
—I have.
—And who is this?
—She is my friend.
—And where is the earth?
—In her handbag.
. . .
—I want to draw the moon.
—Draw it, my darling.
—I can't.
—Why?
—The waves shatter it
continuously.
. . .
—I want to draw paradise.
—Draw it, my darling.
—I have.
—But I don't see any colors.
—It is colorless.
. . .
—I want to draw the war.
—Draw it, my darling.
—I have.
—And what is this circle?
—Guess.
—A drop of blood?
—No.
—A bullet?
—No.
—Then, what?
—The button
that turns off the lights.
推荐阅读：