【注】：
1. 生于纽约、死于纽约的美国诗人约翰•阿舍里(John Ashbery，1927年─2017年)，毕业于哈佛大学及哥伦比亚大学。吴公子与哈佛大学毕业正就读哥伦比亚大学的女儿，于2018年9月1日自纽约的曼哈顿(Manhattan)搭乘地下铁，出地下经海面大桥，入地下至纽约的布鲁克林(Brooklyn)，见到车厢牆面的约翰•阿舍里刊登于1979年7月《诗》(Poetry)杂志的诗作《海面升起的火车》(Train Rising out of the Sea)的节录，该诗共有6段每段4行，节录为第4段的2、3、4行及第5段与第6段。
2. 吴公子中译约翰•阿舍里的诗《海面上的火车》(Train Rising out of the Sea)及其原文如下：
它被写在可用纪录书中
所有事物在渐逝时有其侧重，
每一个都是离散且透明的
在未来的亿万年，它的船头已经远离沙子了。
It is written in the Book of Usable Minutes
That all things have their center in their dying,
That each is discrete and diaphanous and
Has pointed its prow away from the sand for the next trillion years.
之后我们可能成为朋友，
以使我们真诚社交的前例彼此认定。
你听到风声吗？它并未渐逝，
它正在歌唱，编一首关于总统向信任致敬的歌，
After that we may be friends,
Recognizing in each other the precedents that make us truly social.
Do you hear the wind？ It’s not dying,
It’s singing, weaving a song about the president saluting the trust,
我们每个人的过去，在如此多的记忆成为一个机构之前，
通过纯粹的重量，它的持久性，不，
不是持久性：这使它看起来像一种刻意的行为
之于持久，对此巧妙的存在太刻意了
The past in each of us, until so much memory becomes an institution,
Through sheer weight, the persistence of it, no,
Not the persistence: that makes it seem a deliberate act
Of duration, much too deliberate for this ingenious being
就像一个拒绝结束或重生的时代。
我们需要更多夜晚于天空，要更多蓝色于白昼
那已在我们能评论之前将我们的言论淹没
每次一点一点将我们带走
Like an era that refuses to come to an end or be born again.
We need more night for the sky, more blue for the daylight
That inundates our remarks before we can make them
Taking away a little bit of us each time
欲被存放于他处
于我们参与的所在
随着主干带来花开过盛的今年
之于硕大的日落与壮大的微风
To be deposited elsewhere
In the place of our involvement
With the core that brought excessive flowering this year
Of enormous sunsets and big breezes
这让你觉得太简单了
就像一个离岸的岛屿，很多人之一，没有人
觉察，虽然它具有某种功能，虽然是抽象的那种
构筑以免得你被拖到岸边。
That left you feeling too simple
Like an island just off the shore, one of many, that no one
Notices, though it has a certain function, though an abstract one
Built to prevent you from being towed to shore.