Small slender thumbtacks

是更細更小的圖釘

fix his image to a white run of wall

把他固定在一段白牆上

whiter than Mary’s thoughts

比瑪麗亞的心思更白

imprinted with the greys of her son’s grey shadow.

上面有她兒子灰而更灰的影

A hundred Marys weep in the museums.

一百個瑪麗亞在另一間展館哭泣

You can’t of course see the thumbtacks

你當然看不到那棵圖釘

for that white wall’s no mountain 

因為白牆不是當年乾郁的山嶺

from those dry and barren days. 

有人在各各他咳嗽

Someone coughs on Golgotha,

有人開汽車

someone drives by,

土霧一起，山嶺連同一段天空

their dust swirling the mountain 

在壁畫破損處消失

and its streak of sky 

off the flaking fresco.

什麽都消失的牆壁

但無法摘除

The wall where nothing lasts

他那合適任何十字架的灰影

cannot pick out

因為他被一雙十世紀的手

his grey shadow, ripe for any cross, 

從一棵樹裏找了出來

his form cut from a tree

by tenth-century hands.

他的手臂折成三段

身軀也是

His arms make three sections 

手指和腳趾，長得超出了

just like his body,

這個時代的比例

its fingers and toes 

像要擁抱我們

grown longer than our own,

但更像剛錯過一場無邊的漩渦

as if to close us in,

尾韻還擦在他的指尖上

as if they’d snatched at some infinite spiral,

his nails just grazing its end.