The Song of My Lifespring

No way for streams to ever return − it’s not allowed −

to their fountainheads, to their wellsprings − as vowed −

under any disguise but that of a cloud.

No way for pathways to ever return  − it’s not allowed −

to their trailheads, to their roots  − as vowed −

under any disguise unless yearning-bowed.

Oh, pathways and streams, yearnings and clouds,

what will I be when I return − though unavowed −

to my birthplace, to my lifespring − as vowed − ?

Will I be a yearning then ? Will I be a cloud ?

 

The Soul of the Village

Little girl, put your hands on my knees.

I think eternity was born in the village.

Hereabouts every thought ripens more leisurely,

and your heart beats unhurriedly,

as if it didn’t dwell in your chest

but somewhere in the earth’s unfathomable depths.

Hereabouts your thirst for redemption is quenched

and, if your wounded feet are bleeding,

you may have a rest on a clay porch.

 

Look around, it’s evenfall.

The soul of the village is fluttering all over,

like the bashful smell of freshly-cut grass,

like the smoke lowering down from the thatched roofs,

like the goat kids gambolling among tall tombstones.

 

I Crave to Dance !

Oh, how I crave to dance, like never before !
So that Lord God within myself
should not perceive me as a bondsman −

shackled in a prison.
Mother Earth, lend me wings :
I crave to be an arrow, to cleave
unboundedness,
to behold nothing else but heavens all around,
the skies above,
and the skies below −
thus impassioned by the blazing waves of light
to dance
scintillating from unsurpassed impetuses
so that Lord God should exhilaratingly breathe in me,
no longer grumbling,
“I am a bondsman, shackled in a prison !”
The Light

Might the light that I feel

overflowing my chest when I behold you,

might it be a droplet of the light

created on the very first day,

the athirst-quenching light deeper than life ?

 

Nothingness was lying in agony,

when the Inscrutable, solitarily hovering

in the darkness, made a sign,

“Let there be light !”

 

A wide sea

and a gusty lightstorm

came into being in a twinkling :

there was a crave for sins, desires, upsurges, passions,

a crave for worldliness and the heavenly sun.

 

Yet where has the dazzling light

of yore vanished − does anyone know ?

The light that I feel overflowing

my chest when I behold you − my marvel,

might be the last droplet

of the light created on the very first day.

 

English version by Gabriela PACHIA