托马斯·坎托泰拉：那一晚我们应当通过爱的考试

不允许有多选， 虽然我们之中有些人更喜欢这种方式。 它也不是作文，不会诱惑我们 双双忘记主题信马游缰。 在那一晚会有一个暗示 让我们的恐惧变成纠结。不可以作弊， 我们被告知，我们会试着搞清 对自己诚实要付出的代价。在那一晚 天空幻化出某种蓝，考卷的蓝色， 排除了所有日常借口的蓝，当光线湮灭 我们会爬上山坡把我们的身体放在 城市上方的长椅上，试着用它填塞虚空。我们不会 像被告一样接受法庭检验，交叉讯问 直到一方崩溃，接受判罪。不， 在这一晚，因为白天拒绝出庭， 我们应当接受关于爱的考试 就像从未学习过这门课程的学生 必须接受口试，被迫用心脏 而非头顶的器官说话。 那晚结束深夜来临时， 学生的身体已经入眠，威严的教师 已经伴着黑暗告退，我们会 重新审视考卷，每个人以自己的方式： 哪道题对了，哪道题不对，哪个未知量 会让等式成立，是什么让未来的很多年后 回看时，会让我们知道 我们并没有不及格。 作者 / [美国] 托马斯·坎托泰拉 翻译 / 光诸 “In the Evening We Shall Be Examined on Love” And it won’t be multiple choice, though some of us would prefer it that way. Neither will it be essay, which tempts us to run on when we should be sticking to the point, if not together. In the evening there shall be implications our fear will change to complications. No cheating, we’ll be told, and we’ll try to figure the cost of being true to ourselves. In the evening when the sky has turned that certain blue, blue of exam books, blue of no more daily evasions, we shall climb the hill as the light empties and park our tired bodies on a bench above the city and try to fill in the blanks. And we won’t be tested like defendants on trial, cross-examined till one of us breaks down, guilty as charged. No, in the evening, after the day has refused to testify, we shall be examined on love like students who don’t even recall signing up for the course and now must take their orals, forced to speak for once from the heart and not off the top of their heads. And when the evening is over and it’s late, the student body asleep, even the great teachers retired for the night, we shall stay up and run back over the questions, each in our own way: what’s true, what’s false, what unknown quantity will balance the equation, what it would mean years from now to look back and know we did not fail. BY THOMAS CENTOLELLA- St. John of the Cross