Taipei Times bilingual article
The day after the storm, after Typhoon Megi blew merry hell on Tuesday
night, all was quiet again in Neihu’s Dahu Park.
On the surface, it is a scene of tranquility. A pair of park benches placed
side by side beside a stone path leading through the park and up the stairs
leading across the hump-backed bridge that straddles the lake. The surface of the water
in the distance is now calm: the previous night it would have been whipped into a frenzy
by the gale-force winds racing through the park. The grass lining the path on either side
is a fresh green, washed and scrubbed by the winds and rain of the day before.
But obstructing the path there is a curtain of bare branches, stripped of their leaves,
the tree trunk that holds them snapped a third of the way up. The top two thirds is the
hypotenuse of the triangle it now forms with the standing tree and the ground.
You can almost hear the creak and the whine of the broken wood as the top of the
tree plunged to the ground.
風 雨 過 後
週二的那個颱風夜, 梅姬颱風大肆的興風作浪。而就在風雨過後的隔天,
內湖的大湖公園裡一切又恢復了寂靜。
表面上,風平浪靜。一對椅子並排著,坐落在小徑旁邊。小徑穿越公園,蜿
蜒而上,經過階梯,直達橫跨大湖的拱橋。遠遠望去,湖面是靜謐的。然而可以想見的是,前
一晚強風路過,在公園裡肆意咆哮時,為這一片湖掀起了多少的狂亂。小徑兩旁的草地,接受
前一天狂風的洗禮,如今青翠碧綠,宛如新生。
但,今天橫跨在小徑上的,是一幕宛如窗簾的枯枝,樹枝上的葉子都已剝離。那中流砥柱的
樹幹從三分之一的地方裂開,倒下的靠近頂端的那三分之二,如今與還挺立的三分之一還有地
面形成了一個三角,三角的斜邊就是那為強颱折腰的三分之二。
你幾乎可以聽見,樹幹斷裂、一頭栽到地面時,心碎的慘叫聲。
(台北時報編譯詹豐造譯)
Leave a Reply