關於苦難他們從未錯看
那些前輩大師多麼熟知
人間疾苦：
當其發生時
總有另一些人照常吃飯、開窗或閒晃；
老人則在虔誠而熱切地等待
奇跡的誕生，此時總會有些
孩子們不太在意，在
林邊池塘上溜著冰

前輩大師們從未忘懷
最悲慘的殉難自有它成全之道
總之在角落，某個邋遢的場所
群狗繼續牠們狗樣的歲月而刑拷者的馬匹
靠在樹上磨蹭其無恙的臀部

譬如勃艾蓋魯的《伊卡魯斯》
畫中人人都轉過了臉
若無其事地迴避了災難：
那農夫或許聽到落水的聲音、滅頂的呼喊
但對他而言，並不覺得事故重大
陽光依舊映照那雙白皙的腿
在碧波中消失不見
而那艘豪華精緻的船隻必也看見
一樁奇事，有個少年從天而落
但它還要航向某地，遂靜靜地揚帆續航

---原詩---

── Musee des Beaux Arts ──

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully
along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.