At the Time of Peony Blossoming
Robert Bly
When I come near the red peony flower
I tremble as water does near thunder,
as the well does when the plates of earth move,
or the tree when fifty birds leave at once.
The peony says that we have been given a gift,
and it is not the gift of this world.
Behind the leaves of the peony
there is a world still darker, that feed many.
牡丹盛開的時節
羅伯特·勃萊
當我走近那豔紅的牡丹花
我顫抖，有如湖水因雷霆而顫動，
猶如地球板塊移動時的深井，
又如五十隻鳥兒同時飛離後的樹冠。
牡丹花説我們被賜予一份禮物，
並不是這個俗世的饋贈。
牡丹花的葉子背後還有一個世界，
更加陰暗，為很多人提供養分。
中英對白
Robert Bly
“Love poems seem to ask for every bit of musicianship we have, because they
can so easily go out of tune. If the poem veers too far toward actual events,
the eternal feeling is lost in the static of our inadequacies; if we confine
the poem only to what we feel, the other person disappears.”
from Loving a Woman in Two Worlds (985)
“愛情詩似乎要求我們發揮我們擁有的每一絲音樂家稟賦，因為它們實在太容易跑調了。如果一首情詩太滑向真實事件，那麼我們不能充分感受便導致一種靜態，使得永恆的感情在其中喪失；如果我們將情詩只侷限於我們所能感覺的，那麼別人就會消失。”
選自羅伯特·勃萊《在兩個世界愛一個女人》（985年）的序言
學問齋