Перевод с английского. Поэзия
Перевод с английского. Проза.
Some Measure of Happiness
by Lee Wicks
Cate went to town each day to work at a clinic where pregnant women without health insurance came for prenatal care. She had guided countless lives into the blaring light of the world, coaxing women in labor to breathe, relax, and let nature take its course; but when her own turn came, Molly had decided to enter feet first. Cate tried yoga; she did somersaults in the pool and finally agreed to try a process in which doctors attempt to turn the baby from outside by pressing and pushing. Nothing worked. She labored for nine hours and delivered Zeke, and then Jack donned scrubs and held her face in his hands while a surgeon cut into her and pulled their howling daughter into the cold operating room. It had been surreal, with Cate smiling bravely at one end of the table and her body all-open at the other end. He had not expected so much blood, and Jack had a moment when he thought he might faint, but then he heard Molly cry right along with Zeke. Both of his bright pink babies got the highest Apgar scores possible and took to the breast without a bit of coaxing, and when Cate went back to work, they gulped their bottles, too.
Fatherhood claimed him immediately, as nothing else ever had. Jack never felt a moment of fear caring for their sturdy little bodies that plumped up on breast milk day by day. He bathed them, swaddled their wild-waving arms and legs, and brought them to Cate like neatly wrapped packages; and during the long nights with Molly, who suffered from colic, he lost all interest in teaching. In the first week of August, he called the headmaster at Burnside Academy to say he wouldn’t be back - an unheard-of act since he’d already signed a contract, but tolerated due to Jack’s long association with the school. Cate loved the idea. Leaving her job never entered her mind.
And it had been fine, more than fine, but a day can seem long to an adult with two small children, particularly a man who had the habit of reading long complicated books while listening to classical music. When he had the chance to spend an hour alone on a Sunday afternoon, Jack grabbed it.
“Daddy,” Molly said, “It will be more fun if we all go.”
“But no fun to come home to a burned dinner,” Jack answered.
“Even Conway wants you to go,” Zeke said. The dog was staring at Jack with a longing look.
“You couldn’t just put the bread in a cool place to slow down the rising?” Cate asked. “You could turn the stew off for a hour; what difference would it make?”
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“Yeah, Daddy, and we could have hot cocoa and you could go down the hill fastest,” Molly said.
“Next time,” he promised. “Anyway, somebody needs to be here when our friends arrive.”
“I wish Lizzie was coming,” Molly said. “We won’t have any fun without her. You and everybody will just talk and talk.” Lizzie was Claire Westfield’s teenage daughter from her first marriage, and the twins’ favorite sitter.
Jack felt himself agreeing with Molly. Four more adults would suck the silence from the day. It would be hard to get the kids to settle down. Cate would drink too much and fall asleep the minute she hit the bed, and all day long he’d been thinking of making love to her.
“It will be fine,” Cate said. “We’ll have fun. But we have to get going now.”
Перевод с английского. Публицистика.
The Power of Hatred
VIEWPOINT: PHILLIP ADAMS
We love to hate. Hatred gives us emotional energy, political potency, makes life simple. And where love can require effort, hatred is easy. Choose a fellow human to hate, to blame. Focus on race, religion, colour or sexuality and hatred becomes therapeutic, aphrodisiacal, antidepressant.
And hatred rates. On radio our shockjocks stoke understandable anxieties, kindling concerns into blazing resentments and inchoate rage. Complex social issues are reduced to slogans, to bumper stickers and votes for bigots. And here's a strange thing. Working with the shockiest jocks at 2UE in Sydney during its heyday, I concluded that one of the most virulent forms of hatred was self-hatred. 2UE gave a health warning to its audience, promoting itself as "radio active". Damaged personalities radiating dangerous waves. Yet they achieved for their listeners something like W.C. Fields' consensus: "I am free of prejudice. I hate everyone equally."
Just as loving can make the heart hurt, thinking can cause the brain pain. Why unnecessarily stress your neurons and synapses? Resolve to hate this person or that group and feel free from the agitation of cogitation. Close your mind. Reinforce your views by limiting your inputs to the likeminded. Simply let your hatreds seethe and simmer until they boil. Then let off steam by abuse. To hell with Section 18C; let it rip.
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In the 20th century, 150 million people died in wars and genocides. If we really, really try, we could do as well or better in the 21st.
While ostensibly about love, religion can be a huge help with hate. Thus Christians hate Muslims and Muslims hate Christians and Christians hate Christians - as in Protestant versus Catholic - while Muslims hate Muslims, as in Sunni versus Shia. Hindus hate Muslims who hate Hindus. And Christian hatred of Jews led to Holocaust. The Nazis' swastika? The crucifix in jack boots.
Colour clearly brands whom to hate. Hence recent public opinion polls show that white Australians stand ready to reintroduce the White Australia policy. Brown, yellow and black are neither favourite tones for the Trumpians nor hues for the Hansonites. Isn't it marvellous that God has so clearly identified the alien? Jews were harder to pick in Germany. Hence the need for yellow stars.
Some people refuse to get with program. There's a minority who hate hate - and to make things even more confusing, some of them are religious! Yet theirs is a losing battle. For hatred has a very powerful and influential friend. Fear.
Fear and Hatred. The Tweedles Dum and Dee of politics, the Torvill and Dean. Look how The Donald makes people afraid of Mexicans, Muslims, Clintons. Look how Howard, Ruddock et al taught us to fear a few refugees. FDR wanted America to fear fear itself. No passion so effectively robs the mind of its powers of reasoning.
As Trump recruits the forces of fear, hatred and racism, one yearns for the wisdom of earlier presidents - FDR and that great Republican, Lincoln: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed ourselves".
My namesake Henry Adams (1838-1918) defined politics as "the systemic organisation of hatreds". If that is so, tolerance, let alone love, has its work cut out. I'm not talking carnal love but love advocated by that Middle-Eastern fanatic Jesus. Let us pray the Second Coming doesn't occur locally - as we'd hate any Messiah water-walking in our direction. He'd finish up on Manus Island.
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Перевод с английского. Поэзия.
Scale
BY HELEN MORT
My weight is
four whippets,
two Chinese gymnasts,
half a shot-putter.
It can be measured
in bags of sugar, jam jars,
enough feathers for sixty pillows,
or a ;ock of dead birds
but some days it’s more
than the house, the span
of Blair Athol Road.
I’m the Crooked Spire
warping itself,
doubled up over town.
I measure myself against
the sky in its winter coat,
peat traces in water, air
locked in the radiators at night,
against my own held breath,
or your un;nished sentences,
your hand on my back
like a passenger
touching the dashboard
when a driver brakes,
as if they could slow things down.
I measure myself against
love—heavier, lighter
than both of us.
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