The Buried Train

 

Tell me about the train that people say got buried
By the avalanche--was it snow?--It was
In Colorado, and no one saw it happen.
There was smoke from the engine curling up

Lightly through fir tops, and the engine sounds.
There were all those people reading--some
From Thoreau, some from Henry Ward Beecher.
And the engineer smoking and putting his head out.

I wonder when that happened. Was it after
High School, or was it the year we were two?
We entered this narrow place, and we heard the sound
Above us--the train couldn't move fast enough.

It isn't clear what happened next. Are you and I
Still sitting there in the train, waiting for the lights
To go on? Or did the real train get really buried;
So at night a ghost train comes out and keeps going...

Pohřbený vlak

 

Pověz mi o tom vlaku, co ho prý zasypala

lavina – sněhová? – Bylo

to v Coloradu, bez očitých svědků.

Z lokomotivy to funělo

 

nad vršky jedlí, lehce.

A byli tam všichni, co četli – někteří

z Thoreaua, někteří z Henryho Warda Beechera.

I strojvůdce kouřil a vykláněl hlavu.

 

Kdypak se to stalo? Snad

po střední škole, nebo když nám byly dva?

Dorazili jsme do úžiny, slyšeli ten zvuk

nad sebou – a vlak se dost rychle nedokázal hnout.

 

Pak už se přesně neví.  Že ještě ty a já

čekáme na sedadlech, až dají světla pokyn

k pohybu? Nebo byl vlak doopravdy pohřben;

takže po nocích vyjíždí jeho duch…

The Cat in the Kitchen
(For Donald Hall)

Have you heard about the boy who walked by
The black water? I won't say much more.
Let's wait a few years. It wanted to be entered.
Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand
Reaches out and pulls him in.

There was no
Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, or needed
Calcium, bones would do. What happened then?

It was a little like the night wind, which is soft,
And moves slowly, sighing like an old woman
In her kitchen late at night, moving pans
About, lighting a fire, making some food for the cat.

Standing by the road

Suppose you see a face in a Toyota
One day, and fall in love with that face,
And it is Her, and the world rushes by
Like dust blown down a Montana street.

And you fall upward into some deep hole,
And you can't tell God from a grain of sand.
And your life is changed, except that you now
Overlook even more than you did before,

And these ignored things come to bury you,
And you are crushed, and your parents
Can't help anymore, and the woman in the Toyota
Becomes a part of the world that you don't see,

And now the grain of sand becomes sand again,
And you stand on some mountain road weeping.

 

Zastávka u cesty

 

Představ si, že jednoho dne spatříš tvář

v toyotě a do té tváře se zamiluješ,

je to její tvář a teď se svět žene kolem

jako prach po montanské ulici.

 

A ty padáš vzhůru do hluboké jámy

a nevidíš rozdíl mezi Bohem a zrnkem písku.

A tvůj život je jiný, až na to, že teď

toho míjíš ještě víc, než jsi míjel dřív.

 

A čeho si nevšímáš, tě začne zasypávat,

a jsi zdrcený, a otec a matka

ti nepomůžou, a ta žena v toyotě

se stává součástí světa, co nevidíš.

 

A teď je ze zrnka písku opět písek

a ty stojíš v pláči na nějaké horské cestě.