当我们走下变白的木制台阶
来到海滩并仰面躺在
蓝白色的轻便马车上
靠近水边
在地图中那小点之上，
这大海运动夹克上的一个纽扣，
一男一女
我们几乎
无事能做。

整个上午我们观赏云朵
在头顶滚动
或闭目养神
聊来侃去，
声音被沉闷单调的海浪拉平
言词在风中奇特地翻筋头。

这是复活节前的星期五，
距任一大陆都几百英里
离耶稣受难地几千英里。
野芙蓉沿着路边缠绕，
黄腹鸟唱着它的名字，
所有的店铺都关闭了
因为今天是做热十字小面包
和在海滩放飞风筝的日子—
去吃这香甜的十字架
用线绳将十字架固定在天空里。

白色的沙变热了
当我们中的一人指出了地平线上
那个猪嘴，和那上方张口的
鳄鱼泰然自若的要吃一小片云朵。

瞧那是个多么巨大的脑袋，
象那魔鬼戴着眼镜
你说，我却背对太阳合上眼睛
只能听见你的话语
被轻轻海风柔弱翘曲，
告诉我这脑袋如何变为一辆自行车，
大车轮子站在游戏纸牌上，
当海水冲入，落回—
弹子无穷尽地倾泻到大理石地面—
而我俩竟如此平静
这似乎不是我们仅有的生活
只是系列中的一个，一手镯上的饰物，

仿佛每天我们都不是在跑
象那海滩上孤独的奔跑者
朝向没有形状或波浪的黑暗
朝向十字架或云朵，

好象我们中的一个不可能先到那里
落在其他人的后面，
遗弃在一个荒岛上
没有粉色房子和蓝色格窗，
没有李子色配饰着奶油色，
没有海面上的礁石将波浪爆裂成泡沫，
也没有熟悉的声音在风中翘曲。

Bermuda

When we walk down the bleached-out wooden stairs
to the beach and lie on our backs
on the blue and white chaises
near the edge of the water
on this dot in the atlas,
this single button on the blazer of the sea,
we come about as close
as a man and a woman can
to doing nothing.

All morning long we watch the clouds
roll overhead
or close our eyes and do the lazy
back-and-forth of talk,
our voices flattened by the drone of surf,
our words tumbling oddly in the wind.

It's Good Friday here, hundreds of miles
from any mass of land,
thousands from Calvary.
Wild hibiscus twists along the roadsides,
the yellow-breasted bird sings its name,
and all the stores are closed
because today is the day to make hot cross buns
and fly kites from the beaches—
to eat the sweet cross,
to fix with a string a cross in the sky.

The white sand heats up
as one of us points out the snout of a pig
on the horizon, and higher up
a gaping alligator poised to eat a smaller cloud.

See how that one is a giant head,
like the devil wearing glasses
you say, but my eyes are shut against the sun
and I only hear your words,
softened and warped by the sea breeze,

telling me how the head is becoming a bicycle,
the high-wheel kind on playing cards,
while the sea rushes in, falls back—
marbles pouring endlessly onto a marble floor—

and the two of us so calm
it seems that this is not our only life,
just one in a series, charms on a bracelet,

as if every day we were not running
like the solitary runners on the beach
toward a darkness without shape
or waves, crosses or clouds,

as if one of us is not likely to get there first
leaving the other behind,
castaway on an island
with no pink houses or blue shutters,
no plum-colored ones trimmed in cream,
no offshore reef to burst the waves into foam,
and no familiar voice being bent in the wind.

----By Billy Collins