挖
诗/[爱尔兰]谢默斯·希尼
译/李代桃
在我的食指和拇指之间
躺着粗肥的钢笔，温驯如枪。
在我的窗户之下，响起脆亮的锉击声
那是铁铲在戳进砾石地：
我的父亲，在挖土，我俯看
看到他变形的臀部，在花坛中
蹲下、起身，二十年就在此间溜走
弯着腰，协同着马铃薯钻子的节奏
就这样挖着。
粗质的靴踩着铲托，靠着内膝的
铲铀用力地挥动。
他脱掉上衣，把尖亮的铲刀压得很深
挑出新的马铃薯，我们捡起来
冰冷且坚硬，真喜欢。
拜上帝所赐，这个老汉才能舞动铁铲。
就像他的老汉一样。
和谭纳泥塘的其他男人比起来
我祖父每天能挖更多土。
我曾为他带过牛奶，用瓶子装着
纸胡乱塞住瓶口。他站起来
喝上一口，便马上再跳下去
灵活地挑土、剔开，草泥
洒上他肩膀，他往下再往下
只为挖把好泥土。
马铃薯农具那冰冷的气息，压碎、击打
湿润的泥炭，铲刀粗暴地切割着
我脑间醒来的呼吸的树根。
但没有铁铲的我不能像他们那样过下去。
在我的食指和拇指之前
躺着粗肥的钢笔。
我要用它来挖下去。
注：谢默斯·希尼（Seamus Heaney，1939年4月13日-2013年8月30日）爱尔兰作家、诗人。1995年因其诗作“具有抒情诗般的美和伦理深度，使日常生活中的奇迹和活生生的往事得以升华”而获诺贝尔文学奖。2013年8月30日逝世。(wiki)
此诗收录于1966年出版的处女诗集《自然主义者之死》，列为第一首。
附原文（原文链接附有诗人的诵读音频）
By Seamus Heaney
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
Seamus Heaney, “Digging” from Death of a Naturalist. Copyright 1966 by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted with the permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.