Prose of the Second Act

  
 I began walking—as everyone does, what else!
 Standing face to face with time, steadying myself, leaning on my knees I moved toward that ahead...
 I breathed in the earth's fragrance, wrapped these two eyes in quiet breeze,
 Rain fell, and I shivered with wet air across my whole being!
  
 How many arms kept me fiercely sheltered,
 How many pairs of eyes stood guard around me—
 Even counting, I cannot say today.
 Through how many storms, how many mountains crumbled... yet nothing happened to me!
  
 Within me an immortal soul seems to make its home,
 I watch the night sky, sleep peacefully in silence's soft blanket,
 The day's sunlight lovingly wakes me, saying, Good morning! Are you well?
 In such love, ah, in such tenderness all the glittering days pass by!
  
 The scent of rain is sweet and wild! What intoxication! What longing!
 Monsoon water kisses my feet with soft lips as it goes,
 Cloud-bodies like cotton, in that cloud-country the sun rises,
 Eyes moisten in cloud-soaked light, night breaks apart...how many colored buds bloom!
  
 Suddenly I see, how the world has changed!
 Those arms, those eyes have somehow vanished!
 The world's thirst suddenly grew immense...losing all direction!
 I felt, today the time for change has come!
  
 Everyone said, You've grown up! Do your own good now!
 I said, I'll fly away to that distance, I just need a pair of wings!
 Change, change! Right now! The old you is no more!
 As if I'm trapped in a frame against time's wall!
  
 Rain suddenly turned salty, the past became different,
 Old winds grew sharp, stories turned piercing!
 Monsoon water became fire and rushed terribly, burning both feet,
 Cloudy sunlight brought darkness, streams of sweat—this body shudders!
  
 That ocean of arms, ocean of eyes won't be needed anymore—
 I'll walk alone, watch! Understanding directions I'll face all pain alone!
 I'll recognize my own path myself, weave my own pattern myself,
 Go to that distance on my own strength, touch that light in my own joy.
  
 Nights now are terribly weary,
 Light comes, but birds don't come,
 Good mornings have fled, even when I reach out no one takes my hand,
 Each day passes in melancholy, or in laughter—however I make the days!
  
 When I realized how many hundreds of years have passed, alas,
 How beautiful time's theft is, how true, how merciless!
 Joy or sorrow—when time comes—all is lost!
 Time teaches...to see life—by going blind; to hear—by going deaf!
  
 In how many illusions time has wasted away,
 In how many falsehoods truth has died—along with me!
 Childhood is gone—taking wonder with it,
 I've known life through reality, become alone in a hundred bonds.
  
 Life's path is terribly lonely,
 When I reach out—in human guise only the inhuman comes,
 Rain is no longer sweet as before,
 The old wind doesn't awaken hope in sorrow as it used to.
  
 Standing by the roadside
 I can't understand at all which way the wind moves.
 How many winters came and went,
 Leaving their mark...on this heart.
  
 With hope in my chest, in waiting,
 I stand in this solitude.
 None are beside me who were there before,
 One memory remains, and no one else—I understand finally at great cost!
  
 When I leave, everything leaves,
 When I remain, everything remains,
 My death—is my death alone—nothing else...never anyone else's!
 Hope is so heavy, painful to carry...
 Yet the meaning of living is carrying hope—this much I've learned of life!