Winding Up
by Derek Walcott
I live on the water,
alone. Without wife and children,
I have circled every possibility
to come to this:
a low house by grey water,
with windows always open
to the stale sea. We do not choose such things,
but we are what we have made.
We suffer, the years pass,
we shed freight but not our need
for encumbrances. Love is a stone
that settled on the sea-bed
＃13
under grey water. Now, I require nothing
from poetry but true feeling,
no pity, no fame, no healing. Silent wife,
we can sit watching grey water,
and in a life awash
with mediocrity and trash
live rock-like.
I shall unlearn feeling,
unlearn my gift. That is greater
and harder than what passes there for life.
吾将上下而求索
我住在水上，
独处，无妻无子，
弃掉漩生出的各种可能
我成为如今的样子：
一片灰水的一间低矮房子里，
窗户总是敞着
面向无波的海。我们并非选择了这些事，
但最终我们还是从了本来的命运。
遭受，流逝的年岁，
我们卸下负荷 而非对自我的
自怜自爱。爱如石
安置于灰色水域的
河床。现下，我一无所求
真情出嫁于诗境
无怜无名无救。无言的内人
我们一同坐看泉泉的暗流。
和 浮世一生
在庸常和垃圾中
受洗的顽石。
我应该解下感情，
解下天赋。这比当初得到它们可是麻烦多了，
这也比一生随波逐流要好吧。
based on reader azur@douban 's another fine translation ( without the title and #13 line onwards...)
Tension in contextualized translation...from English to Chinese, wor(l)ds apart... ? - ResearchGate. Available from:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Tension_in_contextualized_translationfrom_English_to_Chinese_worlds_apart [accessed Sep 21, 2016].
