Song by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Listen: there was a goat’s head hanging by ropes in a tree. All night it hung there and sang. And those who heard it Felt a hurt in their hearts and thought they were hearing The song of a night bird. They sat up in their beds, and then They lay back down again. In the night wind, the goat’s head Swayed back and forth, and from far off it shone faintly The way the moonlight shone on the train track miles away Beside which the goat’s headless body lay. Some boys Had hacked its head off. It was harder work than they had imagined. The goat cried like a man and struggled hard. But they Finished the job. They hung the bleeding head by the school And then ran off into the darkness that seems to hide everything. The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks. The head called to the body. The body to the head. They missed each other. The missing grew large between them, Until it pulled the heart right out of the body, until The drawn heart flew toward the head, flew as a bird flies Back to its cage and the familiar perch from which it trills. Then the heart sang in the head, softly at first and then louder, Sang long and low until the morning light came up over The school and over the tree, and then the singing stopped.... The goat had belonged to a small girl. She named The goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry, named it after The night’s bush of stars, because the goat’s silky hair Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit. The girl lived near a high railroad track. At night She heard the trains passing, the sweet sound of the train’s horn Pouring softly over her bed, and each morning she woke To give the bleating goat his pail of warm milk. She sang Him songs about girls with ropes and cooks in boats. She brushed him with a stiff brush. She dreamed daily That he grew bigger, and he did. She thought her dreaming Made it so. But one night the girl didn’t hear the train’s horn, And the next morning she woke to an empty yard. The goat Was gone. Everything looked strange. It was as if a storm Had passed through while she slept, wind and stones, rain Stripping the branches of fruit. She knew that someone Had stolen the goat and that he had come to harm. She called To him. All morning and into the afternoon, she called And called. She walked and walked. In her chest a bad feeling Like the feeling of the stones gouging the soft undersides Of her bare feet. Then somebody found the goat’s body By the high tracks, the flies already filling their soft bottles At the goat’s torn neck. Then somebody found the head Hanging in a tree by the school. They hurried to take These things away so that the girl would not see them. They hurried to raise money to buy the girl another goat. They hurried to find the boys who had done this, to hear Them say it was a joke, a joke, it was nothing but a joke.... But listen: here is the point. The boys thought to have Their fun and be done with it. It was harder work than they Had imagined, this silly sacrifice, but they finished the job, Whistling as they washed their large hands in the dark. What they didn’t know was that the goat’s head was already Singing behind them in the tree. What they didn’t know Was that the goat’s head would go on singing, just for them, Long after the ropes were down, and that they would learn to listen, Pail after pail, stroke after patient stroke. They would Wake in the night thinking they heard the wind in the trees Or a night bird, but their hearts beating harder. There Would be a whistle, a hum, a high murmur, and, at last, a song, The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother’s call. Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness.
在我自己的分类标准里，我会把这首诗划入这个类别：读过这首诗后，我的生命产生了某些变化——哪怕只是细微的、不可捉摸的一点点。我变成了一个与读这首诗之前稍有不同的人。这大概是在我自己的标准里，对文学作品的最高分类。
但在初遇这首诗的时候，我好像并没有觉察这一点。一首在诗歌课上羊羊推荐给我们的很精彩的诗歌—似乎和其他每一首诗一样精彩。古怪、鲜活、残忍、叙事感强。但这就我能模糊记得的全部了。那个晃荡的羊头在脑海里一闪而过，字词也跟着消失在记忆的深处。
后来我写了一个关于羊肉的鬼故事，在屠夫的肉架上挂起一扇羊腿，我没有想起它。后来我把这个故事改到了二稿、三稿……以至于第七稿，羊腿变成羊排又变成羊头，我还是没有想起它。直到最近，终于把这个故事改完第八稿，确信自己不会再改下去，很偶然地，买了Brigit Pegeen Kelly的这本诗集。翻开第一页，第一首，第一个Listen，第一行诗，所有词语和画面重新涌入脑海，诗里的小女孩牵着她的山羊走向了我故事里久久站在肉铺前的小女孩，我终于确信这首诗在某个我不曾觉察的时刻改变了我。
这首诗叙事性很强，一开始的Listen和“there was”就构建了讲故事的氛围，起初的画面和氛围是如此古怪，仿佛某个未经删改的民俗故事，用显得血腥残忍的符号象征勾起听众心里的不安和恐惧。但叙事的方向不是线性的，故事是倒着讲的，“there was”的经典起手式开篇的不是故事的起因，而是结果。从故事结果开始，听众沿着歌声和铁轨回溯它的源头，每一次的发现都赋予叙事一点现实的逻辑，每一次的逆推都把开头怪诞的画面推回更现实的脉络上——叙事的溯源给了听众这样的错觉，然而整个故事本质上仍然建立在羊头怪诞的歌声上。在整首诗正中央的部分，故事终于从结果推回了起源，一无所觉的女孩身上。时间和故事从她身上再次开始流动，开始正常时序的叙事。这让整首诗的结构看起来好像蝴蝶的一对翅膀，以女孩为中点，往前是由结果溯向起源，往后是女孩失去山羊之后的种种，而在中点上，拥有羊的女孩和失去羊的女孩重叠在一起，她的喜悦和哀悼重叠在一起，羊头在诗歌的叙事中回到女孩身边，并注定了继续发展下去与女孩永别的结局。
然而这首诗终究不是完全对称的，女孩和山羊如此让人心碎，但它本质上的核心是山羊和那一群残酷的男孩。这首歌的Listen，沿着铁轨的回溯和歌唱，虽然带着温情在叙事中回到了女孩的中点，但女孩并没有听见它，道德上纯洁无瑕的她永远也不会听见它。这首歌不是唱给她听的。接近尾声，But listen，再一次的强调，这首歌是唱给那群并不知道杀戮有那么艰难，却还是完成了杀戮的男孩听的，是唱给所有手上沾了血，身负罪孽的听众听的。当他们，当我们并不知道生命背后柔软的部分，并没有看到山羊死前像人一样挣扎，杀戮永远无所谓残酷。使之残酷的是歌声里的甜美，女孩对山羊的珍视，是当你知道你亲手摧毁了这一切的那一刻。借由这样的听觉上的昭示和对罪孽的反省，这首诗最终用一种怪诞又古老的方式，回到了基督教忏悔的主题上。
这首诗本身是这样一首歌，而这首歌的叙述又极大地依托于其音乐性。Listen一开始就调动了读者的耳朵，而在最开始悚然的羊头图像里，读者很快就能被一连串的h头韵击中，完成从读者到听众的转化。Head-hurt-hang-harm-hack-heard-heart-harder-hands-hum——残酷的行为、柔软的器官、残损的、痛苦的、艰难的——词语在听觉中被潜意识联系起来，组织成密不透风的网，脱口而出的时候，h的声音又仿佛钝器击打的声音，仿佛叹息。读这首诗的时候，它的声音好像在生理性地用钝器击打我。小时候学钢琴，我最害怕钢琴的弱音踏板，踩上去，清脆的声音会变闷，变钝。有个童年反复做的噩梦，就是我变得很小很小，去攀爬巨大如阶梯的一层层钢琴琴键，但不知道谁踩下了弱音踏板，每一个琴键都在我手下脚下发出闷闷的钝音，那个声音在噩梦里，会在生理上包裹我、钝击我，蚕茧一样覆盖我的口鼻耳。后来很多年后，每当我产生和真实世界解离的体验，我都会忽然重温那种钝击和包裹的生理感受，一种我无法形容的窒息和无法解脱的痛苦，不属于听觉、触觉，无法解释——而在听到这首诗字词下的旋律的时候，我第一次感到那种感受在他人的笔下，被以某种接近真相的方式呈现了出来。
很难去更细致地分析这首诗的词句和音乐，无法不断回头去重温那些钝击。但我清楚地看到了它是如何改变了我。也许在我小时候，第一次踩下钢琴踏板，为弹下的第一个音情不自禁地发抖发麻，在我还未曾遇见过这首诗的时候，就已经被这首诗改变了生命中的某个至关重要的部分。
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