At the Edge of the Sea
The shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and se a there has been this place of the meeting of land and water. Yet it is a world that keeps alive the sense of continuing creation and of the relentless drive of life. Each time that I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and it sdeeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings.
在海边
海岸是一个古老的世界.自从有地球和大海以来,就有这个水陆相接的地方.但人们却感觉它是一个总在进行创造、生命力顽强而又充沛的世界.每当我踏入这个世界,感觉到生物彼此之间以及每一生物与它周围环境之间,通过错综复杂的生命结构彼此相连的时候,我对它的美,对它的深层意蕴,都产生某种新的认识
Under water that was clear as glass the pool was carpeted with green sponge. Gray patches of sea squirts glistened on the ceiling and colonies of raft coral were a pale apricot color. In the moment when I looked into the cave a little e lfin starfish hung down, suspended by the merest thread, perhaps by only a single tube foot. It reached down to touch its own reflection, so perfectly delineated that there might have been, not one starfish, but two. The beauty of the refle cted images and of the limpid pool itself was the poignant beauty of things that are ephemeral, existing only until the sea should return to fill the little cave.
在清明如镜的水底铺着一层碧绿的海绵.洞顶上一片片灰色的海蛸闪闪发光,一堆堆软珊瑚披着淡淡的杏黄色衣裳.就在我朝洞里探望时,从洞顶上挂下一只小海星,仅仅悬在一条线上,或许就在它的一只管足上.它向下接触到自己的倒影.多么完美的画面!仿佛不是一只海星,而是一对海星.水中倒影的美,清澈的水潭本身的美,这都是些转眼即逝的事物所体现的强烈而动人心扉的美——海水一旦漫过小洞,这种美便不复存在了.