Breath-marks on Stone

There's much talk of rain on such days of endless chatter,
in the jarulhijol forest, where bare branches slowly fill with green,
you came. Your body bore the essence of yellow blooms, a white flower in your sari's fold,
that flower crowned with pearls. Your lips trembled like petals in the wind—
I saw. As if sparks flew from the forest's depths,
I saw more then: you lost yourself there in your private sun or
golden cool spring dreams, and
you clothed the whole earth in flowers.


Let all the kingdom's greens come drench you,
forget yourself and find yourself again, then look down at the earth,
see how much closer the sky above seems! You'll see
someone has dug wide graves in wood, kept in deep jungle.


One spring I returned to myself.
Before leaving, I told you:
as understanding grows in your depths,
memory's birds rise up,
so too may my soul's living beauty
stay alive, never vanishing.
Work or leisure gives me respite like counting leaves on trees, while
when trees fall, moss finds easier passage.


Like others, I knocked at the door
of that house that displays happiness for sale.
Someone came and opened, touched me with warm hands.
He smiled, with some happy people around him.
Together they asked me in chorus:
Do you want to be happy?
I answered: No.
In the star-filled sky when glittering darkness hums in silence,
when eyes walk through blue heights,
do those stars call to you?
In desert and mid-ocean do lost pilgrims speak with you?
Does a prisoner awakening from nightmares look at you spreading laughter?
Silent even in heavenly whirlwinds, magnificent enough to stay weightless as mercury—
you are just such a person, if you answer yes to those three questions.


Afraid, I kept saying, I want nothing more,
I want nothing but peace in my soul,
let birds stay on flowering branches—that's all my happiness.
I want no greater joy than that.
When the sun rises higher still, increasing warmth,
earth grows colorful, and wind flowing deep
carries peace everywhere. The pure soul no longer feels troubled,
just at such times, doubt a little about not knowing certain words—
only to feel today's beauty and live by breathing in and out!


Spring has come. Earth smokes, sun warms the air,
distant forests weave nets of leaves, water falls in white tree-foam,
some melancholy buds survive in ruins,
bushes stay purple—a certain fragrance spreads there...
Even after grass wraps around straw's arms, light won't retreat from there!
All will be calm, only a bird's song will sound in an emotion-filled void or circle.


Listen, like music trapped in temple arches, the heart, somewhere,
flies to heaven in the carefree joy of some underground happy hollow across sky's body.
Music, peace, beauty, brilliance—they live within you. Seek them!
Understand how even the shy heart wants to meet you in expanded form,
or else your own voice will one day murder your hours.


Golden laughing sun, faithful white flowers, birds seeking nests—
never lie. The flower that suddenly erases all sorrow,
when that scene becomes as intimate as our moist earth,
for that flower our former unquestioned assurances open before us.
Nature—remains in our magnificent living, in breath and arm's shelter,
and if someone dies unburdened by such grace, let's assume
they too learned to live! On spring days such death becomes
beautiful as birth across wide horizons, sun-bright, then
by its magic flower buds open, smiling.
In the magpie robin's whistle plays that song of joy wandering from earth to heaven,
and then desire's fire catches in flowers, sun opens too.


Summer evening, daylight slept in milk twilight—
under stars sprinkling some sleep from cloud-broken dreams onto dew,
and stopping trees' growth around flowers' necks,
in fruit garden trembling disguised as bee-roar.
Every war fell silent in all hearts, where
hung a basket, and heaven descended into that basket, then
after some more time a calm lightning startled awake from laziness.
Somewhere in some cottage the last light too went out. Just then
even on earth's reckless stone, heaven's signal wrote some promise of peace.