I've opened the curtain of my east window here above the computer, and I sit now in a holy theater before a sky-blue stage. A little cloud above the neighbor's trees resembles Jimmy Durante's nose for a while, then becomes amorphous as it slips on north. Other clouds follow, big and little and tiny on their march toward whereness. Wisps of them lead or droop because there must always be leading and drooping.

拉開了房間東邊電腦上方的窗簾，感覺自己仿佛身處一個神圣的劇場，天藍的舞臺展現在面前。有好一會兒，鄰居家樹叢上飄著一朵像杰米·杜蘭特那大鼻子形狀的云朵，但漸漸云朵就往北飄移，大鼻子也就散了狀。周圍的云，大的、小的、丁點兒的都隨之往不知什么地方飄走了。縷縷白云或前行，或散去，這最自然不過了。

The trees seem to laugh at the clouds while yet reaching for them with swaying branches. Trees must think that they are real, rooted, somebody, and that perhaps the clouds are only tickled water which sometimes blocks their sun. But trees are clouds, too, of green leaves—clouds that only move a little. Trees grow and change and dissipate like their airborne cousins.

樹梢隨風輕擺，像往上攀附云朵，也像在嘲笑云朵。樹肯定在想自己才是實實在在、穩穩扎根的重量級人物，而云朵只不過是積聚的水珠，只會偶爾擋住太陽的光輝。其實樹也是一種云，是綠葉做的云，是不怎么動的云。樹會成長、變化、老去，就跟天空的浮云一樣。

And what am I but a cloud of thoughts and feelings and aspirations? Don't I put out tentative mists here and there? Don't I occasionally appear to other people as a ridiculous shape of thoughts without my intending to? Don't I drift toward the north when I feel the breezes of love and the warmth of compassion?

我不也是一朵云嗎？一朵懷著種種想法、感受和抱負的云。我不是也到處作嘗試，制造一個個霧團嗎？我的那些異想天開不也常不經意地在人面前變成了一團奇形怪狀的云嗎？在感受到愛的微風和憐憫的溫暖時，我不也像一朵朝北暢快游走的浮云嗎？

If clouds are beings, and beings are clouds, are we not all well advised to drift, to feel the wind tucking us in here and plucking us out there? Are we such rock-hard bodily lumps as we imagine?

若浮云如人，人亦如浮云，我們是否都應該飄，感受風的力量，讓我們一時扎根這里，一時又把我們拔起吹走？難道我們真的就如自己想像中的那樣穩如磐石嗎？

Drift, let me. Sing to the sky, will I. One in many, are we. Let us breathe the breeze and find therein our roots in the spirit.

飄吧，讓我！我要向天高歌。我們是人海里的過客，就讓我們一起呼吸微風的氣息，在其中尋找我們精神的根。