Here are three poems for this Tuesday afternoon by Norman MacCaig (November 14,1910 – January 23, 1996) Scottish poet and teacher . His poetry is known for its humor and simplicity of language.
A Good Day
摯友與未答應臉書邀友，些許遺憾
1.上週音想轉童元方回舊居之資料給摯友KJ.....不料，他的兩家公司的帳號竟然失聯....後來知道發生些部大不小的事.....
2.今天0321 2024，品質月刊張博士的悼念文 (88號讀)。天氣好，去NTU 操場，手機有"未答應臉書邀友".....
3.希望沒第3則....
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Sun-stunned the water; trees hold their breath
The bracken smell is six foot deep
And never stirs. I feel green crumbs of heather
Crawling on cheekbones…Stillness but not sleep.
A heron, folded round himself,
Stands in the ebb, as I in mine.
I feel my world beneath me, like his, shelving
To darker depths of dark and bitter brine.
Suddenly round the cliff face bolt
Pigeon and falcon – they tear the air
And are gone in it. And the day stands, without motion,
As though nothing had drawn that savage blue stroke there.
What has been wounded? Only false
Images. Nothing can betray
Wise heron, shattering light or breathless alder
Or water slipping soundlessly away.
--Norman MacCaig
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Movements
Lark drives invisible pitons in the air
And hauls itself up the face of space.
Mouse stops being comma and clockworks on the floor.
Cats spill from walls. Swans undulate through clouds.
Eel drills through darkness its malignant face.
Fox, smouldering through the heather bushes, bursts
A bomb of grouse. A speck of air grows thick
And is a hornet. When a gannet dives
It’s a white anchor falling. And when it lands
Umbrella heron becomes walking-stick.
I think these movements and become them, here
In this room’s stillness, none of them about.
And relish them all – until I think of where,
Thrashed by a crook, the cursive adder writes
Quick V’s and Q’s in the dust and rubs them out.
--Norman MacCaig
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By Achmelvich bridge
Night stirs the trees
With breathings of such music that they sway,
Skirts, sleeves, tiaras, in the humming dark,
Their highborn heads tossing in disarray.
A floating owl
Unreels his silence, winding in and out
Of different darnesses. The wind takes up
And scatters a sound of water all about.
No moon need slide
Into the sky to make that water bright;
It ties its swelling self with glassy ropes;
It jumps from stones in smithereens of light.
The mosses on the wall
Plump their fat cushions up. They smell of wells,
Of under bridges and of spoons. They move
More quiveringly than the dazed rims of bells.
A broad cloud drops
A darker darkness. Turning up his stare,
Letting the world pour under him, owl goes off,
His small soft foghorn quavering through the air.
--Norman MacCaig
[poems from Norman MacCaig Collected Poems, A New Edition, Chatto & Windus, London (1990)]
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親情
「親情」似乎是最自然的情感;不僅人有,一般動物也有 。可是在「友情」極爲難得的香港,「親情」似乎也異常淡薄 了。
情感本身雖不是智性的產物,但智性的觀念與所衍生出來的制度,畢竟會影響人的情感。中國的家族制度,從周室行宗法封建以來,早就生了根。雖然宗法封建並行的政治制度,早已不存在;但從這裏蛻變出來的「家族制度」,支配中國社會,一直到大陸赤化以前,仍未完全消失。而在家族制度下,儘管有種種不愉快的事,如兄弟失和,妯娌鬥氣之類,但大體上「親情」確是得到一種有計劃的培養。
家族制度背後的觀念,自然是所謂「血緣責任」的觀念。這種觀念與西方人的家庭責任觀念大不相同。中國傳統的說法,是將 「血緣責任」看成交互性的。所謂「父慈子孝,兄友弟恭」;父母撫著嬰兒,施以教養,因是責任所在；被撫養成人的兒女,也對父母有一定的責任。西方傳統觀點就不同,父母對子女有責任，子女則只對自己的子女有責任。換句話說,子女對父母永無責任。我在十多年前,曾經費了許多事去找西方人這種觀念的根源;結果只知道希臘思想與希伯來教義中,都沒有這種觀念的明顯根據，究竟這樣一種對血緣責任的看法,何由生起,我還是未能得到結論。但這種觀念的存在則是事實。也由於血緣責任變爲單向的,所以,當西方人用英文翻譯中文的「孝」字的時候,就只好用 “Filal duties”了。
至於兄弟之間,西方觀念更未肯定任何特殊責任。今日西方社會中,「兄弟」似乎和「朋友」差不多。中文的「悌」字,因此就更難譯成英文了。
當然,真能在孝悌兩種德性上有圓滿實踐的中國人,也為數甚少;但不可否認的是,中國的家族與它 依的「血緣責任」的觀念,實際上影响中國人普遍的人生態度，種影響之一,就是對親情的重視。
近數十年,中國受西方文化的衝擊；反傳統似乎成了知識份子的一般傾向 。儘管實際上很少人真了解中國傳統文化,也很少了解西方文化的特性,但自覺或不自覺地以「西化」爲榮,則是流行的心理,而以迎合時尙為主的人們, 極力「西化」自身的結果,大半只學了點不相干的「西式」的東西,而喪失了中國傳統中某些好東西。因此,「親情」的溫暖也在知識份子中愈來愈少見了。
有人說,家族制度使人有所依賴，因此鼓勵懶惰;其實現代西方社會中,人人孤立,依然到處有大批無業的游手好閒之徒。所不同處是,在家族制度下,一個不成材的人多半只爲家人之累;現在既無家族可依,凡是不務正業的懶漢,便只好做騙子,老千,綁匪,小偷了。
我大概受了自己所學的影响,總覺得人生最重要的事是人間關係的諧和與溫暖。我總不相信,有一部份人是「該死」或「活該受罪」的。我不喜歡以競爭及鬥爭爲生活内容的社會。由此,我對逐漸消失的「親情」,常常覺得有一種悼念之意。如果你說,我這種心情是不合於「現代化」的要求的,我就想告訴你:我正在懷疑如此的「現代文化」有甚麼意義。你不能以「中國如何能致富强」一類的話來反問我:因爲,現代文化有無價值的問題,並不是它對中國是否有用的問題，譬如五個人一同生活, 有四個人都精於賭術,當然這個不精賭術的人,似乎心須「迎頭趕上」方能免於輸光之厄,但這不證明研究賭術有價值──儘管誰也不會否認,研究賭術是五人中那個唯一的「外行」所急需的。
「親情」是極可貴的溫暖。然而現在的中國社會;這種溫暖已經不可見了,不論你怎樣對我講社會結構的演變，現代文化的趨勢以及中國文化之「低劣」,我還在時時悼念那種溫暖的「親情」,以及培養那種「親情」的社會制度。
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