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But the dealers still hovered on the corners and the young trees had a hard time. Idle kids swung on them like playground poles, and peeled off strips of bark with their nervous little fingers.
但毒贩们依旧在街角转悠，幼树正在遭罪。无所事事的孩童像在操场上玩杆那样抓着幼树摆动身子，还紧张地用小小手指剥下一片片树皮。
One of the saplings planted in front of my house had fallen victim to a car, and now theother one had been murdered by a man mad about Somalia.
种在我屋前的一棵树苗已被汽车压死，现在另一棵被一个对索马里极为愤怒的汉子毁掉了。
Discouraged, I let the holes in the cement choke with crabgrass. In the center of each square, a pathetic stick of dead trunk stuck up.
我失望得很，让水泥围着的洞穴里长满野草。在每个方块中央都竖立着一根可怜巴巴的枯死的树干。
When things are bad, I stand in my kitchen window and look into my own garden, a paradisecompletely hidden from the street outside. For 15 years I've labored and rested in my garden, where roses clamber on bamboo trellises. Lemon, apricot, apple, and fig trees are sheltered by young redwoods and firs that hide the apartment house next door.
有什么不顺心的事情时，我就站在厨房的窗前，望望自己家的花园——一个完全不为外面大街所知的天堂。十五年来，我在花园里劳作、休息，那儿玫瑰爬在竹棚上。树龄不长的红杉和冷杉遮住了隔壁的公寓房，还给柠檬树、杏树、苹果树和无花果树挡风避雨。
I often feel l'm gardening with my dear old next-door neighbor Mrs. Wright. An African-American woman from Arkansas, Mrs. Wright came to work in the shipyards during the war. When she bought the house next door this was the only neighborhood in town where black people were allowed to live. She was foster mother to many children, and she was sadly disapproving of the young people who used drugs when that started. Mrs. Wright farmed every inch of her lot, and had it all in food, mainly greens. She gave most of the food away.
我经常觉得自己在和亲爱的隔壁老邻居赖特太太一起在园中干活。赖特太太来自阿肯色州，是非洲裔美国妇女，在二战期间到造船厂工作。当她买下隔壁那所房子时，这里是本市唯一允许黑人居住的住宅区。她是许多孩子的养母;这里有人开始吸毒时，她感到很伤心，反对年轻人吸毒。赖特太太在自己那点土地上全都种了东西，种的全都是吃的，主要是绿叶蔬菜，大部分送人。
