空は近い

In ethics class so many years ago

if there were a fire in a museum

which would you save, a Rembrandt painting

or an old woman who hadn’t many

years left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs

caring little for pictures or old age

we’d opt one year for life, the next for art

and always half-heartedly. Sometimes

the woman borrowed my grandmother’s face

leaving her usual kitchen to wander

some drafty, half-imagined museum.

One year, feeling clever, I replied

why not let the woman decide herself?

Linda, the teacher would report, eschews

the burdens of responsibility.

This fall in a real museum I stand

before a real Rembrandt, old woman,

or nearly so, myself. The colors

within this frame are darker than autumn,

darker even than winter- the browns of earth,

though earth’s most radiant elements burn

through the canvas. I know now that woman

and painting and season are almost one

and all beyond saving by children.

如果博物館失火

你要救哪一樣──一幅藍布朗的畫

還是一位反正來日無多的

老婦人？坐不住硬椅子的我們

哪管它圖畫或老人

就一年選擇人命，次年選擇藝術

而且總是沒精打采。有時候

那婦人借了我祖母的臉

離開她慣常的廚房逛到

某個通風良好，半真半幻的博物館。

有一年，我自作聰明，回答說

何不讓那個婦人自己決定？

林妲，老師就說，那是在規避

責任的擔子。

今秋在一座真正的博物館裏，我站在

一藍布朗的真跡之前，老婦人囉，

可以這麼說，我自己。畫框裏的

顏色深於秋天，

甚至深於冬天──塵土的棕色，

雖然世間最燦爛的顏色焚

透畫布。我如今才知道婦人

和圖畫和季節幾乎是一體

且都不能由學童來挽救。