荒 废 潘洗尘

四十年前我在这个国家的北边

种下过一大片杨树

如今它们茂密得我已爬不上去

问村里的大人或孩子

已没有人能记得当年

那个种树的少年

四十岁的树木已无声地参天

我也走过轰轰烈烈的青春和壮年

写下的诗赚过的钱和浪得的虚名

恐怕没有哪一样再过四十年

依然能像小时候种下的树一样

可以替我再活百年甚至千年

于是四十年后

我决定躲到这个国家的南边儿

继续种树

一棵一棵地种各种各样的树

现在它们有的早已高过屋顶

有时坐在湿润的土地上

想想自己的一生

能够从树开始再到树结束

中间荒废的那些岁月

也就无所谓了

All the Deserted Years

by Pan Xichen

Forty years back, up north in this country

I planted a huge woodlot of aspen.

Now they are too jungly to climb.

Ask any child or adult in that village

about who planted those trees once upon a time,

no one will remember a thing about the boy.

Those trees have quietly towered into the sky

whilst I went through a gutsy youth and adulthood,

but I am afraid the money earned and the fame gained

will not hold out another forty years,

never mind a century or a millennium,

unlike those trees I planted in my youth.

With that thought in mind,

I decided to begone to the southern country

and still plant trees —

one by one, all kinds of trees;

some of them even stand taller than the roof now.

Sometimes when I sit on the dewy ground

and reflect on my life,

realizing that it started with trees and will end with trees,

I am able to appease the voice within

for wasting those years in-between.

转自：中国诗歌网