When a black butterfly flits past,

当黑蝴蝶一闪而过，

when you glimpse the outlines of apple trees,

当你瞥见苹果树的轮廓，

when you smell the sprig of sunrise and walk up to the ditch,

当你嗅着日出的嫩枝走向沟渠，

when Bering Aleut, Juma, Tuscarora join the list of vanished languages,

当阿留申、朱马、图斯卡洛拉的语言俱已湮没，

when you turn a spigot and irrigate blossoming pear trees,

当你为浇灌梨花树打开水龙，

when the time of your life is a time of earthquakes,

当你偏偏生在地震频发的年代，

when a woman, hit by a car while crossing the street, recovers then slides into pain,

当被车撞倒的女人爬起后陷入剧痛，

when a matsutake emerges out of the rubble of Hiroshima,

当广岛的废墟中长出一支松茸，

when a bartender blows smoke rings and slips through hoops into his past,

当酒保穿过他吐出的烟圈回到过往，

when foragers slice russulas, amanitas, clitocybes and pursue red-capped boletes,

当采蘑人切下鹅膏菌、阴蒂菌、红菇，再找牛肝菌，

when water slips through roots, rises through a trunk, streams into leaves,

当水从树根渗入，沿树干爬升，流淌在树叶中，

when in our bodies we sway and flood,

当我们被体内的洪水撼动，

when you bloody your hands,

当你双手沾血，

when the mind like this Earth is struck and tilts its axis,

当思想如地球被击中轴心倾斜，

when, under summer stars, you have built a cabin in the wilderness,

当你在夏夜星空下结庐于野，

when you gaze at Aldebaran and sense a first frost on the grass,

当你仰望毕宿五时察觉草上的早霜，

when in our bodies we ride the waves of our Earth,

当我们的身体沉浮于这地球的波浪，

here is the anvil on which to hammer your days—

就用这铁砧来锤炼你的时光——