Coming Back and Back

Like some mist-veiled scene, bewildering and
in a solitude thick as blood I live. With myself alone!
My existence lies in neglect's faithful shroud like an unseen melancholy island.
When the wayfarer leaves behind his day and gropes through dusk, lost, wandering with weary limbs,
just then, in other hesitations, on the faded canvas of restless heart-moods
amid the crowd of unspoken words suddenly the traveler
changes direction, seeks melody in other melodies.

And the silent night, it too seems to string garlands with word-flowers
as if there had never been conversation with oneself since birth!
This is like losing oneself from fear of being lost,
circling paths to finally find oneself in a desert, in solitude!
Suddenly, yes, as if suddenly it comes to mind, here I am,
this very I whom I've searched for countless times in other rooms!
Such a time comes when I see, negligence's shawl wraps around this 'I',
having found everything yet the fear of loss nests in the mind!

This, then, is happiness—I am here, everything is here!
If happiness's burning must come, I'll burn alone, or else
let there be celebration with myself!
Breaking myself I'll build myself,
smearing embers on this burnt body I'll become pure!
Like a sacred stone, burnt,
gradually eroding from within I'll become this 'I'!

I will see for certain, when twilight slips and evening descends
which star rises in the sky, where it dwells!
At midnight in the cold touch what draws dew to scatter across this earth from sky!
In solitude all these reckonings become clear,
and clearer still, where and why the heart loses itself!
When losing the path I found the path,
on the back of loss I lost my way countless mornings and evenings,
then if halfway down that road the festival of light
forgets and disappears, what difference does it make!

What will be, will be; what will go, will go... I won't stop it.
What's mine will be mine, what's mine will go!
Happiness, even if it's a butterfly
flying in gardens seeking nectar, then I'll become the garden's owner!
If still I don't glimpse happiness, what then?
Seeking happiness I see happiness's own terrible unhappiness!
Suddenly I think, perhaps without reason I stepped out seeking shade!
Keeping that bit of happiness trapped in my own heart,
I lost my way in the forest!

Why are you like this?
Whenever I leave your city, take two steps elsewhere,
only then do you realize, I am here!
Why are you this way?
All the means and tools for forgetting—
I had already made them long ago!
Again and again you still come,
and change—this me, that you!
What happens this way, tell me...
living life by coming back again and again?