The Bight

by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

At low tide like this how sheer the water is.

White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare

and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches,

Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,

the water in the bight doesn't wet anything,

the color of the gas flame turned as low as possible.

One can smell it turning to gas; if one were Baudelaire

one could probably hear it turning to marimba music.

The little ocher dredge at work off the end of the dock

already plays the dry perfectly off-beat claves.

The birds are outsize. Pelicans crash

into this peculiar gas unnecessarily hard.

it seems to me, like pickaxes,

rarely coming up with anything to show for it,

and going off with humorous elbowings,

Black-and-white man-of-war birds soar

on impalpable drafts

and open their tails like scissors on the curves

or tense them like wishbones, till they tremble.

The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in

with the obliging air of retrievers,

bristling with jackstraw gaffs and hooks

and decorated with bobbles of sponges.

There is a fence of chicken wire along the dock

where, glinting like little plowshares,

the blue-gray shark tails are hung up to dry

for the Chinese-restaurant trade.

Some of the little white boats are still piled up

against each other, or lie on their sides, stove in,

and not yet salvaged, if they ever will be, from the last bad storm.

like torn-open, unanswered letters.

the bight is littered with old correspondences.

Click. Click. Goes the dredge,

and brings up a dripping jawful of marl.

All the untidy activity continues,

awful but cheerful.

海潮退到这样的时候，水便分外清澈了。

白色的石灰泥滩，层层露出水来，浪纹斑驳，闪耀亮眼。

条条小船，晒得干干的；根根木桩，则干得像火柴棒。

吸收而非被吸收，

海湾里的水弄不湿任何东西，

而且呈现出一种瓦斯火开至最低时的颜色。

你可以闻到那海水正转化成瓦斯；假如你是波特莱尔的话

你说不定可以听到那海水正转化成马林巴木琴的声音。

而码头尾端，一个褐色小型捞网正在那里捞着

一直在那里以绝对冷硬的调子，打着双节棒，伴奏着。

水鸟都是特大号的。鹈鹕哗啦冲

入这一泓奇异的瓦斯之中，真是小题大作，

这景象对我来说，有点像鹤嘴锄，

一锄下去，拉回来看看，什么也没有，

于是只好游到一边，样子滑稽的挤入鹈鹕堆里去了。

黑白相间的军舰鸟翱翔在

捉摸不定的气流里

尾巴张开，如剪刀弯弯裁过

尾巴紧绷，如叉骨绷然颤动。

腥臭的海绵船不断的开了进来

以一种猎狗衔回东西般的殷勤姿态，

上面竖立着稻草人般的鱼叉鱼钩

装饰着垂悬吊幌的海绵。

沿着码头，有一排方格铁丝网墙

上面，挂着闪闪发光犁刀般

灰蓝鲨的尾巴，一条条的，在那里风干，

准备卖给中国餐馆。

一些白色的小船，仍然相互靠在一起

堆着放，或侧着放，船身破裂，

还没修好（要是将来真还会去修的话），都是上回暴风弄坏的，

像一封封拆开而没有回复的信。

这小海湾内到处都丢着废弃的信件。

卡啦卡啦，捞网上下捞着，

捞上来滴滴答答一大堆石灰泥。

所有乱七八糟的事都在进行着，糟是糟透了，不过却满愉快的。