Light Within Shadow

Hey, are you listening?
Did you say something?
Bring me a handful of sky!
Only sky? Why not the moon?
Then tell it — let the moon speak!
And if it speaks? Will you then leave me?
You've already lost to that silent moon!
Listen closely, whose words does that heart speak!
A cool breeze flows, tremors touch the chest!

The mind yearns—
dreams give their consent
to place a hand on the chest and feel
that heartbeat's pulse.

How much longer? How much longer?
At midnight the torment grows fierce:
memories all give chase—
all those tales of bygone days,
may those moments never become past.
I'll gather them in story's basket,
string garlands of words, most secret!

At night's end, in memory's crowd:
old or new—
only existence remains throughout.
In your little basket,
gasping at twenty,
when will you come home?

Perhaps at dawn, or maybe in spring.
At nineteen springs, fire caught the flame trees.
I'd kept wildflowers in a small basket,
would return home on the last train!
Who knew I'd made an error in timing too!

What dawn is this, what spring!
Fire burns reckless in the mind.
To quench it, fall like poetry,
sit beside me for a while.
If I think truly,
does anyone ever forget?
I won't accept such words,
the pain you've scratched and left!

That path whose outline never showed even in dreams!
How do I step forward on that unknown way?
The fear of losing everything—
how does this small life bear it!
A flower without thorns is no flower at all!
A life without pain exists only in poetry!

Those lines whose destination lies in infinity...
what forbids walking forward on the path?
The new path that will become familiar
will awaken fear, give a hundred torments—
just like you!?

On a path without branches
has anyone ever been lost?
Flowers and thorns,
strung on different threads,
even in love one finds pain,
does that make it worthless?

Perhaps that path has offered itself to infinity,
but does that mean the shadow-companion traveler should surrender to darkness?
Remember: it's because darkness exists that light wanders everywhere!