Teachings by Win Bassett

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Ocean Vuong, Dawn Lundy Martin, Jennifer Bartlett, Jan Beatty, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Regie Cabico, and more.

Ocean Vuong、道恩·伦迪·马丁、詹妮弗·巴特利特、简·贝蒂、雷金纳德·德韦恩·贝茨、雷吉·卡比科等。

The oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English language.

最古老的专门讨论英语诗歌的月刊。

How are you?

你好吗？

Pity soaks the moment like wet bread.

怜悯就像湿面包一样浸湿了这一刻。

Do I spit it out, or must I gum this unguent down?

我应该把它吐出来，还是必须把药膏咽下去？

— Christian Wiman , from “Darkcharms”

——克里斯蒂安·维曼，来自《黑暗魅力》

I learned in my first week as a hospital chaplain never to ask, “How are you?” or any variation of the question.

在担任医院牧师的第一周，我学会了永远不要问：“你好吗？”或问题的任何变体。

Before my chaplaincy program, I went to law school and served as a criminal prosecutor in North Carolina; I never felt compelled to utter this small-talk inquiry to any party during that time.

在担任牧师计划之前，我进入了法学院，并在北卡罗来纳州担任刑事检察官。在那段时间里，我从未觉得有必要向任何一方提出这种闲聊询问。

But instead of the harsh overhead lighting inside a dilapidated courthouse, I now find myself underneath the sterile bulbs of a university hospital in Virginia for the next three months.

但在接下来的三个月里，我不再是破旧的法院内刺眼的头顶灯光，而是在弗吉尼亚州一所大学医院的无菌灯泡下。

Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), a standardized chaplaincy program housed in most large hospitals in the United States, is a popular summer option for students in seminaries.

临床牧师教育 (CPE) 是美国大多数大型医院都设有的标准化牧师计划，是神学院学生的热门夏季选择。

I gave up the moral distress of putting kids in jail for nonviolent crimes to study literature in a divinity school, a move I hope will serve as an adequate bridge from law to secondary education and advocacy for the poetry world that lent me the courage to head down this road.

我放弃了因非暴力犯罪而将孩子关进监狱的道德痛苦，转而在一所神学院学习文学，我希望此举能够成为从法律到中学教育和诗歌世界倡导的充分桥梁，让我有勇气走上这条路。

“To make injustice the only / measure of our attention is to praise the Devil,” Jack Gilbert writes in the providentially named poem “A Brief for the Defense.”

“让不公正成为我们关注的唯一/衡量标准，就是赞美魔鬼，”杰克·吉尔伯特在一首天赐之名的诗《辩护简报》中写道。

Back in the hospital, my fellow interns and I watched the film Wit , along with most other summer chaplaincy programs in the country, to understand why we shouldn’t ask how someone is doing.

回到医院后，我和我的实习生同事们观看了电影《机智》，以及该国大多数其他夏季牧师节目，以了解为什么我们不应该询问某人的近况。

The movie depicts an angry John Donne scholar (played by Emma Thompson) during her various stages of cancer:

这部电影描绘了一位愤怒的约翰·多恩学者（艾玛·汤普森饰演）在癌症的不同阶段：

I've been asked, "How are you feeling?" while throwing up into a plastic basin.

有人问我：“你感觉怎么样？”同时吐入塑料盆中。

I have been asked as I was emerging from a four-hour operation with a tube in every orifice: "How are you feeling today?"

当我从四个小时的手术中出来时，有人问我：“你今天感觉怎么样？”

I'm waiting for the moment when I'm asked this question and I'm dead.

我正在等待被问到这个问题的那一刻，而我已经死了。

I asked the question all summer.

我整个夏天都在问这个问题。

What else was I supposed to say when I cold-knocked and walked into a room of a vulnerable person I’d never spoken to nor seen in my life?

当我冷冷地走进一个我一生中从未与之交谈或见过的脆弱者的房间时，我还能说什么？

Wiman goes on to write, “prevarications, extenuations, tomorrow’s tease of being: / we are what we are only in our last bastions.” This notion of “our last bastions” troubles me.

维曼接着写道，“搪塞、辩解、明天的存在：/我们只是在最后的堡垒里才成为我们自己。” “我们最后的堡垒”这个概念让我感到困扰。

The most common definition of his last word: “an institution, a place, or a person strongly defending or upholding particular principles, attitudes, or activities.” When a grown man who is half-naked in a hospital bed cries because he can’t move his bowels, is this all that he is if he dies tomorrow?

他的最后一个词最常见的定义是：“强烈捍卫或坚持特定原则、态度或活动的机构、地方或个人。”当一个半裸在病床上的成年男子因为无法排便而哭泣时，如果他明天就死了，这就是他的全部吗？

I visited this man almost every day for two months last summer.

去年夏天的两个月里，我几乎每天都去拜访这个人。

In the mornings, we had didactics (such as “Caring for the Buddhist Patient”) or verbatims (in which we workshopped, word for word, how a patient visit had unfolded), so I visited this guy after lunch each day.

早上，我们进行说教（例如“照顾佛教徒病人”）或逐字记录（其中我们逐字讨论病人的探访是如何展开的），所以我每天午饭后都会拜访这个人。

He was about my father’s age—mid-50s—and he was cleaning brush behind some of his property near the West Virginia–Virginia line when he was shot with an AK-47.

他的年龄与我父亲差不多，50 多岁，当时他正在西弗吉尼亚州和弗吉尼亚州边界附近的一些房产后面清理刷子，当时他被 AK-47 枪击。

It was an accident—some kid was dry-firing it a few houses down, messed up, and shot my patient in the back of his right shoulder.

这是一次意外——几个孩子在几栋房子外进行干射击，搞砸了，射中了我的病人的右肩后部。

The shell bounced around and traveled down his bowels.

贝壳弹来弹去，顺着他的肠子流下去。

I prayed for shit with him all summer.

整个夏天我都和他一起祈祷。

I’ll call him Joe.

我就叫他乔吧。

On our second visit, Joe had me weeping.

在我们第二次拜访时，乔让我哭泣。

After telling me more details about how someone shot him with an assault rifle, how his hospitalization hurt the business at his auto shop, and how the traveling back and forth from home exhausts his wife, I said to him, “You don’t seem like you’re angry at all.” Joe told me he’s not.

在告诉我更多细节，比如有人用突击步枪射杀他，他的住院如何影响他的汽车店的生意，以及往返于家里的旅行如何让他的妻子疲惫不堪时，我对他说，“你看起来一点也不生气。”乔告诉我他不是。

“The first thing I did was to forgive that boy.” Behind wet eyes, I told Joe that it’s rare to encounter someone who actually does what Jesus told us to do.

“我做的第一件事就是原谅那个男孩。”我泪流满面地告诉乔，很少有人真正按照耶稣的吩咐去做。

And I rethought Wiman’s line about last bastions.

我重新思考了维曼关于最后堡垒的台词。

My first overnight stint, one that spans morning to morning, came four weeks into my summer program at the hospital.

我第一次过夜，从早上到早上，是在我在医院参加暑期项目的第四周之后。

During the normal workday hours, no fewer than four chaplain interns, five chaplain residents, two staff chaplains, and two chaplain supervisors roam the main building’s eight floors, which hold 601 beds.

在正常工作日期间，不少于四名实习牧师、五名常驻牧师、两名专职牧师和两名牧师主管在拥有 601 个床位的主楼八层楼中漫步。

I cover only the pediatric and orthopedic units in my afternoons.

我下午只负责儿科和骨科科室的工作。

But once the on-call shift hits, from five in the evening until eight the next morning, I cover the entire hospital.

但一旦值班时间到来，从晚上五点到第二天早上八点，我就会覆盖整个医院。

I love this, I told my supervisor, because I like holding down the fort.

我告诉我的主管，我喜欢这个，因为我喜欢坚守堡垒。

He told me this feeling might be telling of something else.

他告诉我这种感觉可能说明了其他事情。

This standardized chaplaincy program, after all, was designed for participants to learn more about themselves than anything else all summer.

毕竟，这个标准化的牧师计划是为了让参与者在整个夏天更多地了解自己而设计的。

An in-between feeling, like the time on Cadillac Mountain I saw the sun blaring its new brightness, hit me each time I emerged from the on-call suite (a basement room with a twin bed) at the end of my overnight shifts.

每当我下完夜班从值班套房（一间带两张单人床的地下室）出来时，一种介于两者之间的感觉就会袭来，就像在凯迪拉克山上我看到太阳焕发新的亮度一样。

I write in-between in a similar sense to Seamus Heaney ’s notion: between the present and something greater to which I’m not privy.

我以与谢默斯·希尼 (Seamus Heaney) 的概念类似的方式写作“介于两者之间”：介于当下和我不知道的更伟大的事物之间。

After living for 24 hours inside the building, I open the door from the basement to the three-story wall of windows in the lobby that try to serve as a gate to a beaming sun—the motions and resultant visuals make me feel as though a day never passed.

在大楼内生活了 24 小时后，我打开从地下室到大堂三层楼窗户墙的门，这些窗户试图成为通向灿烂阳光的大门 - 这些动作和由此产生的视觉效果让我感觉好像一天都没有过去。

It seems this way because the civilization inside never stops, never rests.

看起来是这样，因为里面的文明永不停歇，永不停歇。

The citizens might change shifts, but it’s noticeable only if I try—there are so many of them, and they are so busy.

市民可能会换班，但只有我尝试一下才会注意到——他们太多了，而且很忙。

Days separate, it seems, not because of a new sun’s rising but because a rest period has begun and ended.

日子分开，似乎不是因为新太阳的升起，而是因为休息期的开始和结束。

When does a new day come into being after one of my overnight shifts?

上一夜班后什么时候开始新的一天？

Not until I step outside.

直到我走出去。

“As the doors glide shut behind me, / the world flares back into being— / I exist again, recover myself,” writes Anya Silver in “ Leaving the Hospital .” As her poem’s speaker emerges from the building, she comments on a fellow patient who doesn’t fare well at night: “the nighttime cries of a man withered / child-size by cancer, and the bells / of emptied IVs tolling through hallways.”

“当门在我身后关上时，/世界重新出现——/我再次存在，恢复自我，”安雅·西尔弗在《离开医院》中写道。当她的诗的演讲者从大楼里出来时，她评论了一位夜间情况不佳的病友：“一个因癌症而枯萎/像孩子般大小的男人在夜间的哭泣，以及空静脉输液器的铃声/在走廊里响起。”

The nurses inevitably page the on-call chaplain when they hear “the nighttime cries of a man withered” because they usually have more pressing medical concerns that need their attention.

当护士听到“一个枯萎的人在夜间的哭声”时，他们不可避免地会呼叫值班牧师，因为他们通常有更紧迫的医疗问题需要他们的关注。

I find early on in my summer that hymns work better than other forms of language or media to console these souls.

我在夏天初期就发现，赞美诗比其他形式的语言或媒体更能安慰这些灵魂。

Forget small talk, television, and off-the-cuff prayers—these folks know their hymns.

忘记闲聊、电视和即兴祈祷吧——这些人知道他们的赞美诗。

After a few weeks of confidence-boosting patient encounters, I realize poetry might also be helpful in these instances of distress.

经过几周增强信心的患者接触后，我意识到诗歌对于这些痛苦的情况也可能有帮助。

The patients don’t know the poems I carry in my pocket the way they know their hymns, but they quiet nonetheless.

病人不知道我口袋里的诗，就像他们知道他们的赞美诗一样，但他们还是安静了。

I chalk up these powers to poetry’s economy of words.

我将这些力量归因于诗歌的语言节约。

When you know you don’t have much longer in this life, why not make every word you speak and hear pack as much meaning as possible?

当你知道自己的生命已经不多时，为什么不让你所说和听到的每一句话都尽可能地有意义呢？

“Poetry is an orphan of silence,” Charles Simic said.

“诗歌是沉默的孤儿，”查尔斯·西米克说。

“Ceremoniously, gravely, and weakly, / Dozens of pale hands are waving / Back, from inside their flames,” James Dickey writes in “ The Hospital Window .” Like the speaker, I take images of hospital residents with me after sleepless nights.

“隆重、严肃、虚弱，/数十只苍白的手在火焰中挥舞/向后，”詹姆斯·迪基在《医院之窗》中写道。和演讲者一样，我也会在不眠之夜后拍摄医院住院医生的照片。

They remain vivid, and the images still live and move after I leave the hospital on my bike as people drive and walk to work in the morning.

当我骑着自行车离开医院后，当人们早上开车或步行去上班时，这些图像仍然栩栩如生，栩栩如生。

I helped a man—if helping means being the last person to pray with him—die during the weeks in July when the Virginia heat blurred my vision outside.

七月的几周里，当弗吉尼亚州的炎热天气模糊了我的视线时，我帮助了一个人——如果帮助意味着成为最后一个与他一起祈祷的人——死去。

He told me he was ready.

他告诉我他已经准备好了。

I didn’t take him seriously, and I tried to convince him that it wasn’t time.

我没有认真对待他，我试图说服他现在还不是时候。

“That the dying may float without fear / In the bold blue gaze of my father,” Dickey writes.

“让垂死的人可以毫无恐惧地漂浮/在我父亲大胆的蓝色凝视中，”迪基写道。

Drained and on my ride home, I think about when I asked him when last he saw his children.

在回家的路上，我筋疲力尽，回想起我问他上次见到孩子们是什么时候。

“Before I went blind over a decade ago,” he laughed.

“十多年前我失明之前，”他笑着说。

Those mornings I traveled north on I91, passing below the basalt cliff of East Rock where the elms discussed their genealogies.

那些早晨，我沿着 91 号公路向北行驶，经过东岩的玄武岩悬崖下方，榆树在那里讨论着它们的家谱。

I was a chaplain at Hartford Hospital, took the Myers-Briggs with Sister Margaret, learned I was an I drawn to Es.

我是哈特福德医院的一名牧师，和玛格丽特修女一起参加了迈尔斯-布里格斯，得知我被埃斯所吸引。

In small group I said, “I do not like it— the way so many young black men die here unrecognized, their gurneys stripped, their belongings catalogued and unclaimed.” — Spencer Reece , from “ ICU .”

在小组中，我说：“我不喜欢这样——这么多年轻的黑人死在这里无人认出，他们的轮床被剥光，他们的财物被编入目录却无人认领。” — Spencer Reece，来自“ICU”。

I read Reece’s poem a few months before I left the divinity school to head to Charlottesville for the summer.

在我离开神学院前往夏洛茨维尔暑假之前几个月，我读了里斯的诗。

I knew what genealogies and the Myers-Briggs were, but I did not know what they meant in a chaplaincy environment until about a month into my program.

我知道家谱和迈尔斯-布里格斯是什么，但直到进入我的项目大约一个月后，我才知道它们在牧师环境中意味着什么。

All three concepts turn out to be processes for me to learn to work better, gentler, more chaplain-like among my fellow chaplains.

事实证明，这三个概念都是我学习在牧师同伴中更好、更温和、更像牧师工作的过程。

If this poem has a volta , or turn, it lands for me in the three middle lines about black men dying without respect or recognition.

如果这首诗有伏特，或者转折，那么它对我来说就是中间三行，讲述的是黑人在没有得到尊重或认可的情况下死去。

I didn’t see this coming after the poem began with lines about relationship measures.

在这首诗以有关关系衡量的诗句开头后，我没有看到这一点。

Like the University of Virginia hospital, Reece’s Hartford Hospital is public and categorized as a Level I Trauma Center.

与弗吉尼亚大学医院一样，里斯哈特福德医院也是公立医院，被归类为一级创伤中心。

Neither place can turn anyone anyway.

无论如何，这两个地方都无法改变任何人。

Today that means undocumented folks or those without health insurance.

今天，这意味着无证人士或没有健康保险的人。

At UVA, that means a lot of white patients in low socioeconomic situations with little to no health literacy.

在弗吉尼亚大学，这意味着许多社会经济地位较低的白人患者几乎没有健康素养。

These seem to be the majority of people with whom I pray.

这些似乎是我与之祈祷的大多数人。

Are there a lot of them, or are they the ones who want to talk to God?

他们人数多吗？还是他们是想与神交谈的人？

I learn the answer to both questions is “yes.”

我了解到这两个问题的答案都是“是”。

The only people who die here “unrecognized, their gurneys stripped, / their belongings catalogued and unclaimed” are poor white people experiencing homelessness at the time of their hospitalization.

唯一死在这里“无人认出，他们的轮床被抢走，/他们的财物被分类且无人认领”的人是在住院期间无家可归的贫穷白人。

The last person I speak with in this situation tells me he’s an archaeologist.

在这种情况下与我交谈的最后一个人告诉我他是一名考古学家。

I can feel a smug expression form on my face when he says this.

当他说这句话的时候，我能感觉到我脸上浮现出得意的表情。

Because my youngest brother is two years into an archaeology PhD program at another Virginia school, I think I can chaplain the hell out of the guy using this shared experience.

因为我最小的弟弟已经在弗吉尼亚另一所学校攻读考古学博士课程两年了，我想我可以利用这段共同的经历来为他做牧师。

We talked about his former prominence in his field in Virginia, briefly, before he brought up his sporadic homelessness.

在他提到自己偶尔无家可归的问题之前，我们简短地谈论了他以前在弗吉尼亚州领域的杰出成就。

He alluded to failing mental health and a fall from “the man I was.” He told me that he wishes it were all over.

他提到了心理健康状况的恶化以及“我本来的样子”的堕落。他告诉我他希望一切都结束。

I knew he meant death, but I pushed him to say it.

我知道他的意思是死亡，但我强迫他说出来。

He did and started crying and turned his face into the pillow.

他照做了，开始哭，把脸埋进枕头里。

“I have no one.” I discover an estranged sister still lives.

“我没有人。”我发现一位疏远的姐妹还活着。

I would give up my life for my two brothers, so I don’t understand how siblings reach this point.

我会为了我的两个兄弟而放弃自己的生命，所以我不明白兄弟姐妹是如何走到这一步的。

I read Reece’s line again: “It is correct to love even at the wrong time.” And I find it difficult to imagine a wrong time to love when a hospital bed confines one of the parties—but his line assumes a wrong time exists.

我又读了里斯的台词：“即使在错误的时间去爱，也是正确的。”我发现很难想象当医院病床上限制了其中一方时，爱情的时间是错误的——但他的台词假设存在错误的时间。

I do understand, however, that the archaeologist who cries before me has no Orpheus, no one to bring him out of hell, no one to say, “I knew I would find you, I knew I would lose you.” Even my love at this right time cannot overcome his spiritual being’s having a dissolute human experience, to borrow the philosopher theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s words.

然而，我确实明白，在我面前哭泣的考古学家没有奥菲斯，没有人把他带出地狱，没有人说：“我知道我会找到你，我知道我会失去你。”借用哲学家神学家皮埃尔·德日进（Pierre Teilhard de Chardin）的话来说，即使是我此时此刻的爱，也无法克服他精神存在的放荡的人生经历。

I prayed, saying aloud to him, “I hope he finds you, I hope he keeps you.”

我祈祷，大声对他说：“我希望他找到你，我希望他留下你。”

I asked for a day off to workshop a few poems at a writers conference in town.

我请了一天假，在镇上的作家会议上练习几首诗。

My supervisor, a chaplain and an ordained American Baptist minister, gladly gave me the time.

我的主管是一位牧师，也是一位被任命的美国浸信会牧师，他很高兴地给了我时间。

He had told me a few weeks earlier that he is a Poetry magazine subscriber, and our relationship got kicked up a notch.

几周前他告诉我他是《诗歌》杂志的订阅者，我们的关系得到了提升。

At the conference, a friend and I are talking about writing, family, insecurities, and she mentions Stephen Dunn .

在会议上，我和一位朋友谈论写作、家庭、不安全感，她提到了斯蒂芬·邓恩。

I hadn’t heard of him.

我没听说过他。

My appreciation for poetry came relatively late in my life—not until I began to study it in divinity school while surrounded by people who write it.

我对诗歌的欣赏是在我生命中相对较晚的时候出现的——直到我开始在神学院学习诗歌，周围都是诗歌作者。

A few weeks later, my friend sends me a copy of Dunn’s poem “A Coldness.” The speaker says about his sick brother, “From then on he was delusional, / the cancer making him / stupid, insistently so, and lost.

几周后，我的朋友寄给我一本邓恩的诗《寒冷》。说话者谈到他生病的兄弟时说：“从那时起，他就产生了妄想，/癌症让他/变得愚蠢，坚持如此，迷失了。

/ I wanted him to die.

/ 我想让他死。

/ And I wished his wife / would say A shame / instead of God's will .

/我希望他的妻子/会说“耻辱”/而不是上帝的旨意。

Or if God / had such a will, Shame on Him .”

或者，如果上帝/有这样的意愿，那就对他感到羞耻。”

I’ve found the lines about cursing God, “ Shame on Him ,” to be true.

我发现咒骂上帝的诗句“他真丢脸”是真的。

My supervisor had told us—me and my fellow chaplain interns—that we might find it appropriate to tell a patient that it’s all right to be angry at God.

我的主管告诉我们——我和我的实习牧师同事——我们可能会发现告诉病人对上帝生气是可以的。

It takes me a while to say this to someone because a lot of my patients believe that to question God is to curse her very nature.

我花了一段时间才对某人说这句话，因为我的很多病人认为质疑上帝就是诅咒她的本性。

They believe it’s God’s will for them to suffer.

他们相信让他们受苦是上帝的旨意。

Some refuse pain-alleviating medication because they believe God wills them to suffer like Christ.

有些人拒绝服用止痛药物，因为他们相信上帝希望他们像基督一样受苦。

“Sometimes, God sucks,” I eventually tell one woman around midnight before she goes into surgery the next morning for a cancer.

“有时候，上帝很糟糕，”我最终在午夜左右告诉一位女士，然后她第二天早上就因癌症接受手术。

I turned over Gregory Orr ’s lines from an untitled poem in his collection How Beautiful the Beloved : “No meaning but what we find here.

我翻阅了格雷戈里·奥尔（Gregory Orr）的诗集《多么美丽的挚爱》中一首无题诗中的诗句：“除了我们在这里找到的东西之外，没有任何意义。

/ No purpose but what we make.” Near the end of my summer, I received this text while I’m asleep in the on-call room, in my clothes and under a single sheet: “Patient in 3112 has expired.

/没有目的，只有我们所做的。”暑假快结束时，我在值班室里睡着了，穿着衣服，盖着一张床单，收到了这样一条短信：“3112 的病人已经过期了。

Family bedside, can you stop by?” I first noticed the son, his polo logoed with old-money Charlottesville.

家人床边，你能过来一下吗？”我首先注意到了他的儿子，他的马球衫上印有夏洛茨维尔的老钱标志。

I had come to expect a different sect of society inhabiting a hospital room when I enter.

当我进入病房时，我已经预料到社会上会有不同的派别居住在病房里。

Only now did I realize state-funded hospital beds (as opposed to those in private medical institutions) serve as a great equalizer.

直到现在我才意识到国家资助的医院床位（相对于私立医疗机构的床位）是一个很好的均衡器。

If doctors and nurses treat patients differently according to assumed abilities to pay, I haven’t seen it.

如果医生和护士根据假定的支付能力来区别对待病人，我还没有看到。

The son’s wife had gorgeous, shoulder-length gray hair.

儿子的妻子有一头华丽的齐肩灰白头发。

Why was I preoccupied with it?

为什么我全神贯注于它？

Did I look for beauty, something good, in that room full of death?

我是否在那个充满死亡的房间里寻找美丽、美好的东西？

Wallace Stevens ’s line “ Death is the mother of beauty ” is too easy in room 3112.

华莱士·史蒂文斯的台词“死亡是美之母”在3112房间里太简单了。

I wanted to ask the woman to come back after I visited the maternity ward on my rounds—does life also give birth to beauty, Stevens?

我想请这位女士在我巡视完产房后回来——生命也孕育着美丽吗，史蒂文斯？

These thoughts occur before my eyes snapped to the dead woman's mouth—open, her lips curled around her teeth.

这些想法出现在我的目光落在死去的女人的嘴上之前——张开的嘴，她的嘴唇卷曲着牙齿。

My eyes didn’t leave her mouth until I left the room.

直到我离开房间，我的眼睛才离开她的嘴。

The son talked to me about her work for her neighborhood (beautifying, organizing, celebrating), her swimming every day.

儿子向我讲述了她为社区所做的工作（美化、组织、庆祝），以及她每天游泳。

She taught all her grandchildren how to swim.

她教她所有的孙子们如何游泳。

“No other world / But this one: / …

“没有其他世界/只有这个世界：/……

No purpose but what we make.” I wanted to ask about what else she did, but I stopped myself because I realized that maybe these acts are enough.

没有目的，只有我们所做的。”我想问她还做了什么，但我阻止了自己，因为我意识到也许这些行为就足够了。

Lay theologian and attorney William Stringfellow:

平信徒神学家兼律师威廉·斯特林费罗 (William Stringfellow)：

In the Gospel, vocation means being a human being, now, and being neither more, nor less than a human being now.

在福音中，圣召意味着现在成为一个人，并且现在既不大于也不小于一个人。

...

And, thus, each and every decision, whether it seems great or small, whether obviously or subtly a moral problem, becomes and is a vocational event, secreting, as it were, the very issue of existence.

因此，每一个决定，无论看起来是大是小，无论是明显还是微妙的道德问题，都成为并且确实是一个职业事件，可以说，隐藏着存在的问题。

During the first two months of my chaplaincy, I didn’t hear poems other than the ones I read as prayers in morning department meetings, and I didn’t hear the word poetry mentioned in any mouth other than my own.

在我担任牧师的头两个月里，除了在部门早上的会议上作为祈祷而读的诗之外，我没有听到过其他诗，也没有听到除了我自己以外的任何人嘴里提到过“诗”这个词。

I volunteered, from the first week of the program and with excitement, to attend weekly meetings of the ethics consult service and weekly lectures curated for and by summer interns in the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities.

从该项目的第一周起，我就兴奋地自愿参加道德咨询服务的每周会议以及生物医学道德与人文中心为暑期实习生策划的每周讲座。

These lectures usually involve matters such as end-of-life legal battles, the craziness of anti-vaccination folks, and caring for incarcerated patients.

这些讲座通常涉及临终法律斗争、反疫苗接种者的疯狂以及照顾被监禁的患者等问题。

They ended up being my favorite hours of the week all summer.

它们最终成为我整个夏天一周中最喜欢的时间。

In my final weeks as a chaplain, Dr. Daniel Becker, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities at UVA, planned to lecture.

在我担任牧师的最后几周，弗吉尼亚大学生物医学伦理与人文中心主任丹尼尔·贝克尔博士计划进行演讲。

I learned that Becker has an MFA from Warren Wilson and is also founding editor in chief of a literary magazine called Hospital Drive .

我了解到贝克尔拥有沃伦·威尔逊的艺术硕士学位，并且还是一本名为《Hospital Drive》的文学杂志的创始主编。

He reads a few of his favorite poems and some of his own work.

他读了一些他最喜欢的诗歌和一些自己的作品。

Why am I only now discovering this guy in my own hospital?

为什么我现在才在自己的医院里发现这个人？

The first poem Becker read is “ A Step Away from Them ,” from Frank O’Hara ’s Lunch Poems , because, he says, we’re at lunch too.

贝克尔读的第一首诗是弗兰克·奥哈拉《午餐诗》中的《远离他们一步》，因为他说，我们也在吃午餐。

I start writing:

我开始写：

It’s my lunch hour , so I go hear a doctor read O’Hara’s Lunch Poems …

现在是我的午餐时间，所以我去听医生读奥哈拉的午餐诗……

What an old-fashioned thing to do, but he’s straddling carbon, which is not oldfangled like delivering lunch on wheels, like the sandwich carted to the old man two nights ago.

这是多么老式的事情啊，但他骑在碳上，这不像用轮子送午餐那样老式，就像两天前推给老人的三明治那样。

He said it was the first thing he had eaten in three days.

他说这是他三天来吃的第一顿饭。

He said it was dry.

他说是干的。

He said he wanted to end it all, but it was hard to do in a hospital.

他说他想结束这一切，但在医院很难做到。

He died last night, and my mind isn’t on lunch or poems or Lunch Poems .

他昨晚去世了，我的心思不在午餐、诗歌或午餐诗上。

The man who died the night before is the same man I asked, “When is the last time you saw your kids?” while forgetting to change this language for a blind person.

前一天晚上去世的那个人就是我问的那个人，“你最后一次见到你的孩子是什么时候？”而忘记为盲人更改这种语言。

He thought it was funny, and he also thought it was funny when he told me that it’s hard to kill yourself in a hospital.

他觉得这很有趣，当他告诉我在医院自杀很难时，他也觉得很有趣。

I laughed too.

我也笑了。

Whenever I hear one of O’Hara’s lunch poems, I’ll think of this man and how he showed me that one could will his life to an end.

每当我听到奥哈拉的一首午餐诗，我就会想起这个人，以及他如何向我展示一个人可以用意志结束自己的生命。

He seemed fine—sick enough to be in a hospital but otherwise fine—when I visited him the previous evening.

当我前一天晚上去看他时，他看起来很好——病得足以住院，但其他方面都很好。

Members of his medical team collectively said that they hadn’t expected him to die at this time either.

他的医疗团队成员集体表示，也没想到他会在这个时候去世。

Yesterday, during his lunch hour, I walked in to his room, and before I said anything else—even my name—I yelled, “Damn, they gave you a cheeseburger?” The man chuckled, said it was a ham sandwich, and called it terribly dry.

昨天，在他的午餐时间，我走进他的房间，在我说任何其他话之前——甚至是我的名字——我喊道：“该死，他们给了你一个芝士汉堡？”那人咯咯笑起来，说那是火腿三明治，还说它太干了。

He then laughed about being blind but coughed in a fit afterward.

然后他嘲笑自己失明，但随后突然咳嗽起来。

He laughed about trying to commit suicide; he called me Father and grabbed my hand.

他笑着说他想自杀。他叫我父亲并抓住我的手。

Today, he’s dead.

今天，他死了。

“But is the / earth as full as life was full, of them?,” asks O’Hara’s speaker.

“但是，地球上的生命是否也像生命中一样充满了它们呢？”奥哈拉的演讲者问道。

Among the many people I’ll remember from that summer—my patient shot with an AK-47, the boy who tried to commit suicide but failed, my supervisor who listened to my laments—emerges Claudia Emerson .

那个夏天我会记住的许多人中——我的病人被 AK-47 枪击，那个试图自杀但失败的男孩，我的主管倾听我的哀悼——其中出现了克劳迪娅·爱默生 (Claudia Emerson)。

I met her on August 8 at the writers conference before my last week at the hospital.

8 月 8 日，在我住院的最后一周之前，我在作家会议上见到了她。

She read on the last night, and I didn’t recognize her until her introduction.

她昨晚读书，直到她介绍我才认出她。

She had recently undergone chemotherapy.

她最近接受了化疗。

Emerson, who grew up in Chatham, Virginia, about 45 miles from my childhood home, reads eight sonnets inspired by the meaning of metastasis , a Greek word that means “displacement,” from meta , “next,” and stasis , “placement.” I wrote down a few notes, but one of her earlier poems that she read—“ Frame, An Epistle ”—is the one that sent me into a vulnerable and embarrassing (for me) public moment.

爱默生在弗吉尼亚州查塔姆长大，距离我童年的家大约 45 英里，他读了八首十四行诗，灵感来自于“转移”的含义，转移是一个希腊词，意思是“位移”，来自“meta”（“下一个”）和“stasis”（“安置”）。我写下了一些笔记，但她读过的她早期的一首诗——《框架，一封书信》——是那首诗让我陷入了一个脆弱而尴尬的（对我来说）公共时刻。

Emerson’s reading—when she got to the penultimate line about noticing for the first time the way the speaker’s loved one has cut and planed a piece of cherry—was the first time I’ve teared up at a poetry reading.

爱默生的朗诵——当她读到倒数第二行时，她第一次注意到演讲者的亲人切切和刨削一颗樱桃的方式——是我第一次在诗歌朗诵中流泪。

“But this morning, / as I put on my overcoat, then straightened / my hair, I saw outside my face its frame,” Emerson writes, “you made for me, admiring for the first / time the way the cherry you cut and planed / yourself had darkened, just as you said it would.” I was not sure what to do except blink to stop the tears and pretend it hadn’t happened.

“但是今天早上，/当我穿上大衣，然后拉直/拉直头发时，我看到我脸外面的框架，”爱默生写道，“你为我做的，第一次/第一次欣赏你自己切割和刨削的樱桃变黑的方式，正如你所说的那样。”我不知道该怎么办，除了眨眼止住眼泪，假装这件事没有发生。

Four months later, almost to the day, I was on a train from New Haven to Philadelphia, where I was to catch a flight to Memphis to interview someone for an article I was writing.

四个月后，几乎是这一天，我坐在从纽黑文到费城的火车上，在那里我要搭乘航班飞往孟菲斯，为我正在写的一篇文章采访某人。

Twenty minutes into my train ride, I learned that Emerson had died.

乘坐火车二十分钟后，我得知爱默生去世了。

I found the photo that I took of her on that day at the Boar’s Head in Charlottesville.

我找到了那天我在夏洛茨维尔的野猪头酒店给她拍的照片。

I had captioned it on Instagram:

我在 Instagram 上为它添加了标题：

“There is no reason why the teaching of poetry shouldn't be as serious as the teaching of medicine.” —Pulitzer Prize-winner and former poet laureate of Virginia Claudia Emerson after being treated for cancer in a teaching hospital (at #VQR2014 )

“诗歌教学没有理由不应该像医学教学一样严肃。” ——普利策奖得主、弗吉尼亚州前桂冠诗人克劳迪娅·爱默生在教学医院接受癌症治疗后（#VQR2014）

The fact that she said this after treatment in a teaching hospital and that I worked at a teaching hospital was not lost on me.

她在教学医院接受治疗后说了这番话，而我也在教学医院工作，这一事实并没有让我忘记。

I then found my notes as the train passed Norwalk, and the memory of my tears after her reading of “Frame, An Epistle” comes to me.

然后，当火车经过诺沃克时，我找到了我的笔记，我想起了她读完《框架，一封书信》后我流下的泪水。

The speaker singles out a mirror to keep because it doesn’t evoke a missed loved one.

说话者挑选了一面镜子保留，因为它不会唤起思念的亲人。

It’s the one furnishing that has been invisible to her all these years.

这是她这些年来一直看不见的一件家具。

“No one / pauses long before it,” but the speaker eventually, because of a careful characteristic of the frame, stands attentively before it.

“没有人/在它面前停顿很久”，但说话者最终，由于框架的谨慎特征，聚精会神地站在它面前。

The tragedy is that she notices the detail too late.

悲剧的是她注意到这个细节为时已晚。

I asked one of my patients, weeks before Emerson’s reading, what he did in the hospital to pass the time.

在艾默生读书的几周前，我问我的一位病人，他在医院里做什么来打发时间。

I think he had grave issues in his legs from diabetes, and he told me he watched his television all day.

我认为他的腿因糖尿病而出现严重问题，他告诉我他整天看电视。

I commented that I’d never seen his television turned on, and he explained how he projects images from his mind onto the black screen.

我评论说我从未见过他的电视打开过，他解释了他如何将脑海中的图像投射到黑屏上。

Before I had a chance to think “This guy has lost it,” he told me that he replays events from his life that he’s proud of and situations when he has disappointed himself.

在我有机会思考“这家伙已经失去了它”之前，他告诉我，他重演了他生活中令他自豪的事件以及他令自己失望的情况。

“If I get out of here, I’m going to make it up to the people I might have hurt,” he said.

“如果我离开这里，我会弥补我可能伤害的人，”他说。

I asked to hear about one of the latter situations, and he told a story about refusing to shake a boy’s hand in church when they were teenagers (the patient is in his 60s now).

我要求听听后一种情况，他讲了一个关于十几岁的时候在教堂里拒绝与男孩握手的故事（患者现在已经 60 多岁了）。

The other boy “wasn’t all there mentally,” he told me, and everyone in the neighborhood thought that he was weird.

另一个男孩“精神不正常”，他告诉我，附近的每个人都认为他很奇怪。

The patient joined the crowd, ignoring the boy too.

病人加入了人群，也无视了男孩。

“He’s alive, and I think he still lives around me,” the man said.

“他还活着，我想他还住在我身边，”该男子说。

“I’m going to find him and shake his hand.” I hope he’s not too late.

“我要去找到他并与他握手。”我希望他还不算太晚。

On May 27, 2015 at 1:23pm Josh wrote: This was so moving.

2015 年 5 月 27 日下午 1:23 乔什写道：这太感人了。

Thanks, Win.

谢谢，温。

On May 27, 2015 at 2:17pm tim barrus wrote: I teach art to adolescent boys with HIV.

2015 年 5 月 27 日下午 2:17 蒂姆·巴鲁斯 (Tim Barrus) 写道：我向感染艾滋病毒的青春期男孩教授艺术。

All I really do is collect it.

我真正做的就是收集它。

It can, indeed, be heavy lifting.

事实上，这可能是一项繁重的工作。

I am not exactly sure where most of the poetry comes from, but these kids have a lot to say.

我不太确定大部分诗歌来自哪里，但这些孩子有很多话要说。

AIDS is so yesterday.

艾滋病已经是昨天的事了。

Not.

不是。

Hush, it's a secret.

嘘，这是秘密。

AIDS is still around.

艾滋病仍然存在。

The hospital is a place where you come to die.

医院是一个让你死去的地方。

It is also a place where there can be long stretches of time where time itself is this strangulation of your being and your chops.

这也是一个可以有很长一段时间的地方，时间本身就是对你的存在和你的印记的绞杀。

You can pour all the pain and the mystery of it into words.

你可以将所有的痛苦和神秘倾注在言语中。

I am often blown away from the strength that comes from this Look What I Did And Eat Me Throwing The Composition Book And Pen Across The Room.

我经常被“看看我做了什么，吃掉我把作文书和笔扔到房间另一边”所带来的力量所震惊。

Those rooms and stories -- like my desk -- are never really sterile.

这些房间和楼层——就像我的桌子——从来都不是真正无菌的。

https://medium.com/@timbarrus/just-before-the-cure- 85df14c1f8c5

https://medium.com/@timbarrus/just-before-the-cure-85df14c1f8c5

On May 27, 2015 at 2:53pm Win Bassett wrote: Thank you, Josh!

2015 年 5 月 27 日下午 2:53 Win Bassett 写道：谢谢你，乔什！

On May 28, 2015 at 4:21am liz dreesen wrote: what a moving essay.

2015 年 5 月 28 日凌晨 4:21 liz dreesen 写道：多么感人的文章啊。

for the last 22 years, I have been a general surgeon, now primarily trauma and surgical critical care at another southern teaching hospital.

在过去的 22 年里，我一直是一名普通外科医生，现在在另一家南方教学医院主要负责创伤和外科重症监护。

one of the many many things i discovered in the south (after living and training in the north) was the importance of the hospital chaplain, which i had never really seen or appreciated prior to my working in a 50 bed hospital in rural north carolina.

我在南方发现的许多事情之一（在北方生活和训练之后）就是医院牧师的重要性，在我在北卡罗来纳州乡村一家拥有 50 个床位的医院工作之前，我从未真正见过或欣赏这一点。

these days, the chaplains are amongst my greatest allies and colleagues.

如今，牧师们是我最伟大的盟友和同事之一。

one of my more astute med students asked me how i cope (or some word like that) with the sadness around me.

我的一位更精明的医学生问我如何应对（或类似的词）周围的悲伤。

i told her i read poetry every morning on the poetry foundation website, which thrills, inspires, comforts, amazes and generally helps me set off on the right foot each day.

我告诉她，我每天早上都会在诗歌基金会网站上读诗歌，这让我兴奋、鼓舞、安慰、惊奇，通常可以帮助我每天以正确的方式出发。

thanks for your work which i will share with our chaplains.

感谢您所做的工作，我将与我们的牧师分享。

On May 28, 2015 at 12:52pm David Mahan wrote: This is beautiful piece, tender and illuminating.

2015 年 5 月 28 日中午 12:52，大卫·马汉 (David Mahan) 写道：这是一首美丽的作品，温柔而富有启发性。

Win, who had been my student, reminds me of why I teach poetry in the first place.

温，曾经是我的学生，让我想起了我最初教诗歌的原因。

Thank you for teaching me ...

谢谢你教我...

On May 28, 2015 at 2:48pm Win Bassett wrote: Thank you for commenting, Liz!

2015 年 5 月 28 日下午 2:48 Win Bassett 写道：谢谢您的评论，莉兹！

I'm glad to hear that you've had such wonderful experiences with chaplains.

我很高兴听到您与牧师一起度过了如此美好的经历。

On May 29, 2015 at 10:03pm Griffin Phillips wrote: As a recent graduate of seminary...

2015 年 5 月 29 日晚上 10:03 格里芬·菲利普斯 (Griffin Phillips) 写道：作为神学院的一名应届毕业生......

Who took a year off to work full time as an associate in a church...

他休了一年假，在教堂做全职助理……

I have gone through the CPE process.

我已经完成了CPE流程。

With Hospice.

与临终关怀中心。

I kept working for them after the time was over (part time while still in school).

时间结束后我继续为他们工作（还在学校时兼职）。

I spent a great deal of time in the area that was just for the very end of life patients as well.

我花了很多时间在这个专为临终病人服务的区域。

I completely agree with what you've written.

我完全同意你所写的。

What a great guy!

多么棒的一个人啊！

I'm a minister, I know the attorney drive...

我是一名部长，我知道律师的职责...

(My mother)...

（我的妈妈）...

What a lovely combination :)

多么可爱的组合啊:)

On June 1, 2015 at 7:26pm Rachel Hardy wrote: Absolutely touching.

2015 年 6 月 1 日晚上 7:26 Rachel Hardy 写道：绝对感人。

On June 5, 2015 at 10:59am Verna Wilder wrote: I loved this article and was completely engrossed and sympathetic--right up to this line: "These lectures usually involve matters such as end-of-life legal battles, the craziness of anti- vaccination folks, and caring for incarcerated patients."

2015 年 6 月 5 日上午 10 点 59 分，Verna Wilder 写道：我喜欢这篇文章，完全全神贯注和同情——直到这句话：“这些讲座通常涉及诸如临终法律斗争、反疫苗接种人士的疯狂以及照顾被监禁患者等问题。”

The "craziness of anti-vaccine folks"?

“反疫苗人士的疯狂”？

Please read the blog posts of this very literate and intelligent woman (http://elizabethaquino.blogspot.com/) who has been caring for her severely epileptic daughter for 19 years, a child born perfect who began having her first spasms after being vaccinated at 2 months old.

请阅读这位非常有文化和智慧的女性 (http://elizabethaquino.blogspot.com/) 的博客文章，她一直在照顾她患有严重癫痫症的女儿 19 年，她是一个天生完美的孩子，在 2 个月大的时候接种疫苗后开始出现第一次痉挛。

She has two younger children.

她有两个年幼的孩子。

Is she "crazy" for not wanting to have them vaccinated?

她不想让他们接种疫苗是“疯了”吗？

I have no strong opinions on having children vaccinated.

我对让孩子接种疫苗没有强烈的意见。

Both of mine were vaccinated.

我的两个都接种了疫苗。

My quarrel is with your judgment that all "anti-vaccine" folks are crazy.

我不同意你的判断，即所有“反疫苗”人士都是疯子。

Please try to understand the fear of someone like my friend Elizabeth.

请尝试理解像我的朋友伊丽莎白这样的人的恐惧。

She is not crazy; she is grief- stricken over and over, every day, as she cares for a grown daughter who has all the needs of an infant.

她没有疯；她没有疯。她每天都一遍又一遍地悲伤，因为她要照顾一个拥有婴儿所需的所有成年女儿。

Did the vaccine cause the epileptic seizures?

疫苗是否导致癫痫发作？

Who knows.

谁知道呢。

Thank you for your beautiful writing.

谢谢你的美丽写作。

Please visit Elizabeth's site.

请访问伊丽莎白的网站。

Her posts are eloquent tributes to motherhood and to living with a severely disabled child.

她的帖子雄辩地赞扬了母亲的身份以及与严重残疾的孩子一起生活的情况。

On June 5, 2015 at 11:15am Slow Reader wrote: Win -- What an eloquent and compassionate essay!

2015 年 6 月 5 日上午 11:15 慢读者写道：赢——多么雄辩而富有同情心的文章！

Thank you for writing this for us!

感谢您为我们写下这篇文章！

Bravo to you for leaving the law which, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a corrupted profession, and certainly over-saturated with lawyers, while law schools only continue to crank out more lawyers each year ...

为你离开法律而喝彩，不幸的是，法律已经成为一种腐败的职业，而且律师肯定已经过度饱和，而法学院每年只会继续培养更多的律师......

Dr. Liz Dreeson commented above -- I encourage all commenters here to take a moment to read her essays over on the newsobserver.com website.

Liz Dreeson 博士在上面评论道——我鼓励所有评论者花点时间在 newsobserver.com 网站上阅读她的文章。

Her essays are brimming with humility, compassion, sorrow and meaning ...

她的文章充满了谦卑、同情、悲伤和意义……

WIN -- thank you again for this superb essay!!

胜利——再次感谢您这篇精彩的文章！

On February 9, 2016 at 8:44pm Kim Langley wrote: I cannot thank you enough for the time, sensitivity and skill with which you imbued this article.

2016 年 2 月 9 日晚上 8:44 Kim Langley 写道：我非常感谢您在这篇文章中投入的时间、敏感度和技巧。

I had the privilege and pleasure of speaking to chaplains at the Cleveland Clinic recently, and their enthusiasm for using poetry in pastoral care was inspiring.

最近，我有幸和克利夫兰诊所的牧师交谈，他们对在教牧关怀中使用诗歌的热情令人鼓舞。

I will be sharing this article with the director of Spiritual Care there, and I want you to know that I looked up every one of the poems that you referenced.

我将与那里的精神关怀主任分享这篇文章，我想让你知道我查阅了你提到的每一首诗。

After 10+ years of facilitating poetry circles and seeing the amazing healing and conversation that can happen in them,I'm working on a book on how to lead circles for healing, both physical and spiritual.

在促进诗歌界十多年并看到其中可能发生的惊人治愈和对话之后，我正在写一本关于如何领导诗歌界进行身体和精神治疗的书。

Your poems are a great addition to those I have collected for suggested use in this work.

你的诗是对我收集的建议在这部作品中使用的诗的一个很好的补充。

On February 11, 2016 at 6:19am Jacob Campbell wrote: Read this on Seth's recommendation.

2016 年 2 月 11 日上午 6:19，雅各布·坎贝尔 (Jacob Campbell) 写道：根据赛斯的推荐阅读此内容。

Retired from a life as therapist in psychiatric hospitals, I can empathize with this "message." Poetry is our blood.

从精神病院治疗师的生活中退休后，我可以理解这个“信息”。诗歌是我们的血液。

Poetryfoundation.org welcomes comments that foster dialogue and cultivate an open community on the site.

Poetryfoundation.org 欢迎在网站上促进对话和培育开放社区的评论。

Comments on articles must be approved by the site moderators before they appear on the site.

对文章的评论必须经过网站版主的批准才能出现在网站上。

By submitting a comment, you give the Poetry Foundation the right to publish it.

通过提交评论，您授予诗歌基金会发表评论的权利。

Please note: We require comments to include a name and e-mail address.

请注意：我们要求评论中包含姓名和电子邮件地址。