很棒的一首詩

之前post在MSN 的一首捷克詩人的詩，談的是所謂的"exactness"

"Brief Thoughts on Exactness" by Miroslav Holub

Miroslav Holub, a czech writer and immunologist.

Fish
move exactly there and exactly then,
just as
birds have their inbuilt exact measure of time and place.
But mankind,
derived of instinct, is aided
by scientific research, the essence of which
this story shows.

A certain soldier
had to fire a gun every evening exactly at six.
He did it like a soldier. When his exactness
was checked, he stated:
I follow
an absolutely precise chronometer in the shop-window
of the clockmaker downtown. Every day at seventeen
forty-five I set my watch by it and
proceed up the hill where the gun stabds ready.
At seventeen fifty-nine exactly the gun
and exactly at eighteen hours I fire.
It was found
that this method of firing was absolutely exact.
There was only the chronometer to be checked.
The clockmaker downtown was asked about its exactness.
Oh, said the clockmaker,
This instrument is one of the most exact. Imagine,
for years a gun has been fired here at six exactly.
And every day I look at the chronometer
and it always shows exactly six.
So much for exactness....