Clouds come and go, sky incantations.

白雲陣陣，猶如天空之咒語……

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

我可否說它隱藏人生奧秘：聚散無形。

converging, dispersing.

我在兩分鐘內看到它變幻五種形象：

Five shapes in two minutes,

先是蝴蝶，再是牡丹……現在是寶塔

butterfly to peony, now a pagoda.

——雲非雲。我想起古人的言辭；

I recall the ancient line: clouds are not clouds.

那是多少思想得出的結論？對耶否耶，

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

我無從知道——科學日日無中生有，

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

告訴我新事。但我仍然沒勘透眾多秘密

saying something new. Through all this fog,

——我不懂我的身體，為什麼夜晚疼痛

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

白晝又安然無恙；也沒搞清楚

vanish in daylight. Why in my dreams

為什麼夢中總是出現同一個死去的同學

the same dead classmate reappears.

——複雜！就像我看到蝴蝶，總是驚異

Perplexing! Like seeing a butterfly, startled

牠花紋美麗；看到天鵝，總是驚異

at its patterns’ splendor, or astonished

牠飛翔時，比國家儀仗隊還要整齊。

by a flight of swans, in their array

more order than an honor guard.