Bonsai of Thoughts (Translated)

Bonsai of Thoughts: One Hundred Thirty-Two

1. Come! No one will touch you here!
This place is cool, dark, farther even than the soul!
Here memories lie heaped in piles;
this is the refuge of all my wordlessness.

2. Mid-evening in winter.
I carefully made tea and brought it,
only to find you'd fallen asleep from exhaustion.
...I pulled the blanket up properly around you.

3. Birthdays
are each a road—
leading nowhere.

4. Beggar or king—
whoever you may be,
your sorrows touch none of those
who share in your joys.

5. Which laughter feels good to laugh?
The kind that meets laughter in return!

6. Why do you laugh like a victor
while giving me that very pain
which you knew I'd suffer
when I came to you?

7. The poem I wrote in solitude,
you read in solitude.
Yet would you still say
we never met?

8. Even the blind rush toward
the source of light!

9. Birds fly away
leaving no trace—
save for one blue sky.

10. Looking at the dry leaf
in my hand,
I think: one day we too shall meet.

11. Even without hearing footsteps,
the rose awakens surely,
rival to the sun.

12. Though the sky can't be seen
through rain's thick walls,
you can be seen just fine.

13. I was sitting, dreaming.
Suddenly, sleep...
Death of all dreams!

14. The delicious meat
near the coals—
flies never settle there.

15. The old man went and sat on the bench.
His soul warmed in sunlight.
What's the point of quarreling with old age now?

16. Dry leaves fallen
along the path
sketch an unknown old woman's face.

17. In haste,
only delays come.
Trying to save time,
only wastes more time.

18. When truth comes
and strikes the eyes,
though you close them,
don't open your mouth.

19. That I read the newspaper daily
and remain perfectly sane—
isn't this success?

20. I cover my own laziness
with life's laziness.
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