It is a smoothing employment to sit on a stump,

on a height overlooking the pond,

and study the dimpling circles incessantly in scribed on its surface

amid the surface, skies and trees.

It may be that in the distance a fish

describes arc of three or four feet in the air,

and there is one bright flash where it emerges,

and another where it strikes the water;

or here and there, a pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooth surface.

It is wonderful with that elaborateness this simple fact is advertised

This piscine murder will out reported in circling dimples,

In lines of beauty,

The constant welling up of its fountain,

The gentle pulsing of its life,

The heaving of its breast.

Then the trembling circles seek the shore and all is smooth again.

One November afternoon,

the pond was remarkably smooth,

so that it was difficult to distinguish its surface.

I was surprised to find myself surrounded by myriads of small, bronze colored perch.

In such translucent water, reflecting the clouds,

I seemed to be floating through the air as in a balloon,

and their swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering,

as if they were birds passing just beneath my level,

their fins, like sails, set all around them.

 

閒坐樹樁令人心胸一暢

自高處俯瞰池水

細看那漣漪成圈，刻劃湖面不絕

蒼天樹影在湖面交錯

遠處或有飛魚

凌空三、四呎劃出圓拱

破水時留下白影

潛入時又另補一痕

不時有梭魚抑或石鱥

於平滑水面啄食昆蟲

平凡事物卻體現奧妙細節

游魚的殺戮行動，轉化為成圈漣漪

優美的線條

湧泉時時迸發

生命悠然脈動

胸脯上下起伏

直至圓周顫動觸及邊岸，一切終歸平靜

那十一月的下午

池水極為平順

湖面幾若無形

我驚覺身旁圍繞無數古銅色河鱸幼魚

湖水若隱若現掩映雲影

我在空中飄浮，彷彿有氣泡包裹

只見魚群游動，或飛掠或盤旋

如同群鳥在腳下展翅遨遊

四周的鰭片一如風帆