英语诗歌:Churning Day(在线收听

Seamus Heaney


A thick crust, coarse-grained as limestone rough-cast,


hardened gradually on top of the four crocks


that stood, large pottery bombs, in the small pantry.


After the hot brewery of gland, cud and udder,


cool porous earthenware fermented the butter milk


for churning day, when the hooped churn was scoured


with plumping kettles and the busy scrubber


echoed daintily on the seasoned wood.


It stood then, purified, on the flagged kitchen floor.


Out came the four crocks, spilled their heavy lip


of cream, their white insides, into the sterile churn.


The staff, like a great whiskey muddler fashioned


in deal wood, was plunged in, the lid fitted.


My mother took first turn, set up rhythms


that, slugged and thumped for hours. Arms ached.


Hands blistered. Cheeks and clothes were spattered


with flabby milk.


Where finally gold flecks


began to dance. They poured hot water then,


sterilized a birchwood bowl


and little corrugated butter-spades.


Their short stroke quickened, suddenly


a yellow curd was weighting the churned-up white,


heavy and rich, coagulated sunlight


that they fished, dripping, in a wide tin strainer,


heaped up like gilded gravel in the bowl.


The house would stink long after churning day,


acrid as a sulphur mine. The empty crocks


were ranged along the wall again, the butter


in soft printed slabs was piled on pantry shelves.


And in the house we moved with gravid ease,


our brains turned crystals full of clean deal churns,


the plash and gurgle of the sour-breathed milk,


the pat and slap of small spades on wet lumps.

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