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.
In my thoughts of the shore, one place stands apart for its revelation of exquisite beauty. It is a pool hidden within a cave that one can visit only rarely and briefly when the lowest of the year's low tides fall below it, and perhaps from that very fact it acquires some of its special beauty. Choosing such a tide , I hoped for a glimpse of the pool. The ebb was to fall early in the morning. I knew that if the wind held from the northwest and no interfering swell ran in f rom a distant storm the level of the sea should drop below the entrance to the pool. There had been sudden ominous showers in the night, with rain like handfuls of gravel flung on the roof. When I looked out into the early morning the sky was full of a gray dawn light but the sun had not yet risen. Water and air were pallid. Across the bay the moon was a luminous disc in the western sky, suspended above the dim line of distant shore — the full August moon, drawing the tide to the low, low levels of the threshold of the alien sea world. As I watched, a gull flew by, above the spruces. Its breast was rosy with the light of the unrisen sun. The day was, after all, to be fair.
Later, as I stood above the tide near the entrance to the pool, the promise of that rosy light was sustained. From the base of the steep wall of rock on which I stood, a moss covered ledge jutted seaward into deep water. In the surge at the rim of the ledge the dark fronds of oarweeds swayed smooth and gleaming as leather. The projecting ledge was the path to the small hidden cave and its pool. Occasionally a swell, stronger than the rest, rolled smoothly over the rim and broke in foam against the cliff. But the intervals between such swells were lo ng enough to admit me to the ledge and long enough for a glimpse of that fairy pool, so seldom and so briefly exposed.
And so I knelt on the wet carpet of sea moss and looked back into the dark cavern that held the pool in a shallow basin. The floor of the cave was only a fewinches below the roof, and a mirror had been created in which all that grew on the ceiling was reflected in the still water below.
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.
By Rachel Carson
在海邊
海岸是一個(gè)古老的世界.自從有地球和大海以來,就有這個(gè)水陸相接的地方.但人們卻感覺它是一個(gè)總在進(jìn)行創(chuàng)造、生命力頑強(qiáng)而又充沛的世界.每當(dāng)我踏入這個(gè)世界,感覺到生物彼此之間以及每一生物與它周圍環(huán)境之間,通過錯(cuò)綜復(fù)雜的生命結(jié)構(gòu)彼此相連的時(shí)候,我對它的美,對它的深層意蘊(yùn),都產(chǎn)生某種新的認(rèn)識(shí).
每當(dāng)我想起海岸,就有一個(gè)地方因?yàn)樗憩F(xiàn)出的獨(dú)特美妙而占有突出的地位.那就是一個(gè)隱匿于洞中的水潭.平時(shí),這個(gè)洞被海水所淹沒,一年當(dāng)中只有海潮降落到最低,以至低于水潭時(shí),人們才能在這難得的短時(shí)間內(nèi)看見它.也許正應(yīng)如此,它獲得了某種特殊的美.我選好這樣一個(gè)低潮的時(shí)機(jī),希望能看一眼水潭.根據(jù)推算,潮水將在清晨退下去.我知道,如果不刮西北風(fēng),遠(yuǎn)處的風(fēng)暴不再掀起驚濤駭浪進(jìn)行干擾,海平面就會(huì)落得比水潭的入口還低.夜里突然下了幾場預(yù)示不祥的陣雨,一把把碎石般的雨點(diǎn)被拋到屋頂上.清晨我向外眺望,只見天空籠罩著灰蒙蒙的曙光,只是太陽還沒有升起.水和空氣一片暗淡.一輪明月掛在海灣對面的西天上,月下灰暗的一線就是遠(yuǎn)方的海岸——8月的望月把海潮吸得很低,直到那與人世隔離的海的世界的門檻.在我觀望的時(shí)候,一只海鷗飛過云杉.呼之欲出的太陽把它的腹部映成粉色.天終于晴了.
后來,當(dāng)我在高于海潮的水潭入口處附近站著時(shí),四周已是瑰紅色的晨光.從我立腳的峭巖底部,一塊被青苔覆蓋的礁石伸向大海的最深處.海水拍擊著礁石周圍,水藻上下左右地飄動(dòng),像皮面般滑溜發(fā)亮.通往隱藏的小洞和洞中水潭的路徑是那些凸現(xiàn)的礁石.間或一陣強(qiáng)于一陣的波濤悠然地漫過礁石的邊緣并在巖壁上擊成水沫.這種波濤間歇的時(shí)間足以讓我踏上礁石,足以讓我探視那仙境般的水潭,那平時(shí)不露面、露面也只是一瞬間的水潭.
我就跪在那海苔蘚鋪成的濕漉漉的地毯上,向那些黑洞里窺探,就是這些黑洞把水潭環(huán)抱成淺盆模樣,只見洞的底部距離頂部只有幾英寸.真是一面天造明鏡.洞頂上的一切生物都倒映在底下紋絲不動(dòng)的水中.
在清明如鏡的水底鋪著一層碧綠的海綿.洞頂上一片片灰色的海蛸閃閃發(fā)光,一堆堆軟珊瑚披著淡淡的杏黃色衣裳.就在我朝洞里探望時(shí),從洞頂上掛下一只小海星,僅僅懸在一條線上,或許就在它的一只管足上.它向下接觸到自己的倒影.多么完美的畫面!仿佛不是一只海星,而是一對海星.水中倒影的美,清澈的水潭本身的美,這都是些轉(zhuǎn)眼即逝的事物所體現(xiàn)的強(qiáng)烈而動(dòng)人心扉的美——海水一旦漫過小洞,這種美便不復(fù)存在了.
雷切爾·卡森