给大自然的情诗

部分摘录：

Gerald Durrell 杰拉尔德·达雷尔（1925—1995）

达雷尔在泽西动物园埋下了一个时空胶囊，里面有一封给未来人类的信。信里这样写：

我们希望未来会有萤火虫在夜晚指引你，

会有蝴蝶在灌木丛及森林里迎接你。

我们希望你的黎明会有鸟类歌唱的交响乐，

它们拍击翅膀的声音会让你感到振奋。

……

我们希望你会感恩于出生在这个神奇的世界。

达雷尔临终遗言

就我个人来说，一个没有鸟，没有森林，没有各式各样、大大小小动物的世界，我宁愿不要活在其中。

如果你喜欢这本书（或我其他的书），请记得是动物赋予这些书生命，让这些书妙趣横生；它们是没有声音、没有投票权的大多数；没有我们的帮助，它们不可能生存下去。

我们每个人都有责任，要努力遏制人类对地球的可怕亵渎，我在用我仅知的办法，尽力在做，但我需要你的支持。

01 一抹灵异色彩

“我太累了，不想为这种事争论，”母亲说，“反正大概也没害处。”

于是玛戈坐在椅子上，用手把一大堆皱兮兮的甘蓝菜叶按在脸上，母亲很严肃地用红线把叶片绑紧。我觉得玛戈看起来像个奇怪的蔬菜木乃伊。

【这里妈妈虽然觉得很荒唐，但还是满足女儿的要求，真是好妈妈。】

04 桃金娘森林

显然我不能把它养在屋里，拉里刚刚才提醒母亲，说她可以在走廊上种马铃薯了。

05 侏儒丛林

它花了五分钟在水里的小树枝和水草上跑来跑去，四处勘察，终于选了一个地方开始建造它的家。

水蜘蛛正是潜水钟的最初发明者，我全神贯注地坐在水族箱前面，看它是怎么建造的。蜘蛛先用几束长丝接在小树枝和水草中间作为支索，然后它站在中央，开始织出一个扁扁的、不规则的椭圆形蛛网，只不过比普通蛛网更细针密缕些，所以看起来像个圈套。光是这件工作就花了它将近两小时。

房子建好了，它开始储存空气。它不断跑到水面上，每次再回到水中时，身上即沾满了银色的空气泡泡。它再跑回蛛网底下，用脚不断摩挲自己的身体，把气泡搓掉，气泡往上升，立即被蛛网罩住。奔走五六趟之后，所有的小气泡集结成一个大气泡。蜘蛛不断充入更多空气，那颗气泡也越变越大，最后把蛛网撑起来时，工作也完成了。

在水草与小树枝中间的支索上，挂着一个钟状的空气泡。蜘蛛现在可以舒适地住进它的家，因为这个钟状空气泡可以由水草不断补充氧气，而蜘蛛所排出的二氧化碳会透过他家的丝墙，溶进外面的水中。

【动物的世界如此神奇，不观察，你都不知道他们有多智慧。】

09 刺猬与海狗

“你唱歌唯一了不起的地方，就是锲而不舍的精神，”拉里说，“换了任何人，知道自己没有乐感，又记不得再简单不过的歌词，老早就放弃了。”

他的表现令我们颇感骄傲，可惜到了谈话快结束的时候，牧师太太又以无比狡猾的手段，将话题转到她小孩身上。这个话题占据她思想世界的全部，听她的口气，你会觉得不仅全世界只有她这一个女人生过小孩，而且她的每个小孩都是纯洁的。她针对自己小孩过人的聪慧，独白了十分钟之后，停下来喝了一口茶。

【哈哈哈。大多时候，没人关心你的滔滔不绝。就像George Carlin脱口秀里说的，“Nobody cares about your children, okay?” 所以，时刻提醒自己，少过度表达自己无聊的事情。】

诗：

没有你，万般精彩皆枉然（这首诗是杰瑞写给他第二任妻子的诗，我找来原文如下）

I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers.

I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously.

I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten.

I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotized and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends.

I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red Howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes.

I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things… but –

All this I did without you. This was my loss.

All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain.

All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

没有你，万般精彩皆枉然

我见过千种日出日落，

在大地上森林与高山都被笼罩在蜜色光泽之中，

在海里为一团五彩云朵平添上一道殷红，

在广阔的大洋之中潮汐潮落。

我见过千般的月亮，

满月如金币，

寒月苍白如冰屑，

新月宛如雏天鹅的绒毛。

我见过的海平静如止，颜色如缎，

我遇到过千种不同的动物，

目睹过千般绝妙的事物……

然而——

没有你，我做了什么都是失落。

有了你，我做什么都是收获。

为了有你一分钟的相伴，

我愿把这一切都放弃，

为你的笑语，你的声音，你的眼睛……