白雲陣陣，猶如天空之咒語……

Clouds come and go, sky incantations.

我可否說它隱藏人生奧秘：聚散無形。

You might say they hide life’s secret, a slow drift

我在兩分鐘內看到它變幻五種形象：

converging, dispersing.

先是蝴蝶，再是牡丹……現在是寶塔

Five shapes in two minutes,

——雲非雲。我想起古人的言辭；

butterfly to peony, now a pagoda.

那是多少思想得出的結論？對耶否耶，

I recall the ancient line: clouds are not clouds.

我無從知道——科學日日無中生有，

How many thoughts to earn such wisdom? Right, wrong,

告訴我新事。但我仍然沒勘透眾多秘密

no way to know—each day science invents from nothing,

——我不懂我的身體，為什麼夜晚疼痛

saying something new. Through all this fog,

白晝又安然無恙；也沒搞清楚

I still don’t understand my body, why night’s pains

為什麼夢中總是出現同一個死去的同學

vanish in daylight. Why in my dreams

——複雜！就像我看到蝴蝶，總是驚異

the same dead classmate reappears.

牠花紋美麗；看到天鵝，總是驚異

Perplexing! Like seeing a butterfly, startled

牠飛翔時，比國家儀仗隊還要整齊。

at its patterns’ splendor, or astonished

by a flight of swans, in their array

more order than an honor guard.