New Life ・ 引き続きJoseph Brodskyの詩集So Forthから、ベルリンの壁の崩壊する1年前、1988年に書いた詩、New Lifeを。詩人は預言者だとは、詩人が自らの詩で歌わなくともそうである。不易流行。本質は変わらない。その変わらない言葉を。方針に従い、最初に全部の詩を掲げることにしよう。
【原文】 Imagine that war is over, that peace has resumed its reign. That you can still make a mirror. That it's a cuckoo or a magpie, and not a Junkers, that chirps in the twigs again. That a window frames not a town's rubble but its rococo,
laurel. That the cast-rion lace the moon used to shepherd clouds in, in the end endured the onslaught of mimosa, plus bursts of agave. That life must start from the very threshold.
People exit their rooms, where chairs like the letter b or else h shield them from vertigo on occasion. They are of use to nobody save themselves, pavement flagstones, the rules of multiplication. Thatユs the impact of statues. Of their empty niches, more accurately. Well, falling sanctity, one still can use its byword. Imagine that this is all true. Imagine you speak of your- self while speaking of them, of anything extra, sideward.
of a volcanic eruption, of a dinghy high waves beleaguer. With the attendant feeling it's only you who survey the disaster. With the feeling that you are eager to shift your gaze any moment, catch sight of a couch, a blast of peonies in a Chinese vase, sallow against the plaster.
be, in their turn, harbingers of a disaster.
Each thing is vulnerable. The very thought about a thing gets quickly forgotten. Things are, in truth, the leeches of thought. Hence their shapes ----- each one is a brainユs cutout --- their attachment to place, their Penelope features; that is their taste for the future. At sunrise, a roosterユs heard. Stepping out of the tub, wrapped in a bedsheetユs linen in a hotel in the new life, you face the herd of four-legged furniture, mahogany and cast iron.
Imagine that epics shrink into idylls. That words are but the converse of flame's long tongues, of that raging sermon which used to devour your betters greedily like dry wood. That flame found it difficult to determine your worth, not to mention warmth. Thatユs why youユve survived intact. Thatユs why you can stomach apathy, thatユs why you feel fit to mingle with the pomonae, vertumni, ceres this place is packed with. Thatユs why on your lips is this shepherdユs jingle.
For how long can one justify oneself? However you hide the ace, the table gets hit with jacks of some odd suit and tailor. Imagine that the more sincere the voice, the less in it is the trace of love for no matter what, of anger, of tears, of terror. Imagine your wireless catching at times your old anthemユs hum. Imagine that here, too, each letter is trailed by a weaning retinue of its likes, forming blindly now メbetsy, メ now メibrahim,モ dragging the pen past the limits of alphabet and meaning.
Twilight in the new life. Cicadas that don't relent. A classicist perspective that lacks a tank or, barring that, dank fog patches to obfuscate its end; a bare parquet floor that never sustained a tango. In the new life, no one begs the moment, "Stay!" Brought to a standstill, it quickly succumbs to dotage. And your features, on top of that, are glazed enough anyway for scratching their matter side with "Hi" and attaching the postage.
The white stuccoed walls of a room are turning more white because of a glance shot in their direction and boding censure, steeped not so much in far meadows' morose repose as in the spectrum's lack of their self-negating tincture. A thing can be pardoned plenty. Especially where it cones, where it reaches its end. Ultimately, one's unbound curiosity about these empty zones, about these objectless vistas, is what art seems to be all about.
In the new life, a cloud is better than the right sun. The rain, akin to self-knowledge, appears perpetual. On the other hand, an unexpected train you donユt wait for alone on a platform arrives on schedule. A sail is passing its judgment on the horizon's lie. The eye tracks the sinking soap, thought it's the foam that's famous. And should anyone ask you メWho are you?モ your reply, "Who --- I? I am Nobody," as Ulysses once muttered to Polyphemus.