A Hare at Aldergrove

Paul Muldoon

A hare standing¹ up at last on his own two feet
in the blasted（枯萎的，被害的） grass by the runway may trace his lineage（血统，家系） to the great
assembly of hares that, in the face of what might well have looked like defeat,
would, in 1963 or so, migrate
here from the abandoned airfield³ at Nutt's Corner, not long after Marilyn Monroe
overflowed⁴ from her body stocking
in Something's Got to Give. These hares have themselves so long been given to row
against the flood that when a King
of the Hares has tried to ban bare knuckle⁵（关节，指节） fighting, so wont⁶
are they to grumble⁷（抱怨） and gripe（牢骚）
about what will be acceptable and what won't
they've barely noticed that the time is ripe
for them to shake off the din²
of a pack of hounds that has caught their scent⁸
and take in that enormity（暴行，极恶） just as I've taken in
how my own DNA⁹ is 87% European and East Asian 13%.
So accustomed had they now grown
to a low-level human hum that, despite the almost weekly atrocity¹⁰（凶恶，残暴）
in which they'd lost one of their own
to a wheeled blade, they followed the herd¹¹ towards this eternal city
as if they'd had a collective change of heart.
My own heart swells¹² now as I watch him nibble¹³ on a shoot
of blaeberry（覆盆子） or heather（石南花） while smoothing out a chart
by which he might divine if our Newark-bound 757 will one day overshoot
the runway about which there so often swirled¹⁴
rumors¹⁵ of Messerschmitts.
Clapper-lugged, cleft-lipped, he looks for all the world
as if he might never again put up his mitts¹⁶
despite the fact that he shares a Y chromosome¹⁷（染色体）
with Niall of the Nine Hostages,
never again allow his om
to widen and deepen by such easy stages,
never relaunch his campaign as melanoma（黑素瘤） has relaunched its campaign
in a friend I once dated,
her pain rising above the collective pain
with which we've been inundated¹⁸（淹没）
as this one or that has launched an attack
to the slogan of "Brits Out" or "Not an Inch"
or a dull ack-ack
starting up in the vicinity of Ballynahinch,
looking for all the world as if he might never again get into a fluster¹⁹（慌乱，混乱）
over his own entrails,
never again meet luster²⁰ with luster
in the eye of my dying friend, never establish what truly ails²¹
another woman with a flesh wound
found limping where a hare has only just been shot, never again bewitch（迷惑，蛊惑）
the milk in the churn, never swoon as we swooned
when Marilyn's white halter-top dress blew up in The Seven Year Itch²²,
in a flap now only as to whether
we should continue to tough it out till
something better comes along or settle for this salad of blaeberry and heather
and a hint of common tormentil（直立委陵菜） .