-- 帕布羅．聶魯達（根據英文翻譯）

時間，你呼喚著。你
曾經是
完美的空間，
開闊的草原。
如今
你是
一縷絲線，一滴水，
一道細長的光
如一隻野兔般朝深夜的灌木叢
急促地奔跑。

但
現在
時間，你正對我說著
你不曾告訴過我的事。

去吧，去吧，
讓你的心休息一會兒。
去吧，唱你的歌。

我還是同一個我，不是嗎？我還能
從河水流動的方式
了解一條河流嗎？

我只知道，我的心
總在那個地方
敲打著同一扇
門，
從昨天便一直敲打著，從遙遠的地方，
從很久以前，
從我有生以來 —

在那個地方
那海的歌唱
得到黯淡的
回聲
的地方，我唱著歌，
那回聲
我只能從
它看不見的低吟
從敲打著海浪的
閃電
從夜裡，海浪所堆起厚厚的泡沫
辨認出來。

所以，時間，
你徒勞地高估我了。
你徒勞地老想要趕在
我這個飄流的人
之前。

我一整晚待在
同一扇門邊。
孤獨地，歌唱。

如今
你的光芒微弱了，
像一隻快速奔跑的動物
漸漸消失在陰影裡，
如今，你才坦白地
告訴我
你從不曾說過
但我總是知道的事


--

ODE TO FUTURE TIME (ODA AL TIEMPO VENIDERO)
-- Pablo Neruda (Translated by Ken Krabbenhoft)

Time, you beckon. Before
you were
perfect space,
open prairie.
Today
you are
a thread, a drop,
a slender light
scurrying like a hare toward thickets
of concave night.

But
now
you're telling me, time, what
you didn't tell me before.

Go ahead, get going,
give your heart a rest.
Go ahead and sing your song.

I'm still the same, aren't I? The one
who knows the river
by the way its water flows?

All I know is this: in that very place
my heart has been knocking
at a single
door,
knocking since yesterday, from afar,
since long ago,
since my birth ---

that place
where the dark echo
of the singing
sea
answers, and I sing,
an echo
I only
know
by its blind hissing,
by lightning
striking the waves,
by waves' thick froth in the night.

And so, time,
you've sized me up in vain.
In vain have you hurried
to stay a step ahead
of this wanderer.

I spent the entire night
by a single door.
I was alone, and singing.

And now
while your light thins
like a speeding animal
fading into shadow,
only now do you tell me
plainly
what you didn't show me
but I've always known.