I have learned this much: in this world
this music, this ache, this song—transcendent—
all of it is only maya.
Where, alas, does life's every flavor
vanish without trace.
Like one deranged, with tireless oblivion
climbing the sky's ladder far, so far away,
like a restless seeker, day and night
without pause I have wandered
across imagination's entire realm.
Around restless bends, many bends
far from life's grove—so far away
in utter solitude somewhere else
I weave golden dreams of humans,
only humans, on another path...
These are counterfeit dreams. False longings.
From infinity's heart in wounded melody
it declares there is nothing, nothing at all—
not even a little shelter,
only doubt, at heaven's edge
in the horizon's corner, in the muffled thunder
of dense clouds thick with poison-vapor,
the tune of rebellion awakens.
Beneath the blind mind, sealed shut
are heaven's doors. The melody has returned to that
Himalaya of sorrow; on the hushed, blocked path
it dies smothering, so perhaps that tune returned
in tears to transcendent dream-filled eyes.
How wondrous is this human heart!
In the mind's depths its sharp feeling
in trembling flame only dies and blazes
kindling desire's fire-tongue day and night.
Why does it come again to the shuttered window;
in the ocean's blue like a beloved's eyes
the flower-months are somewhere vanished; still
what pain lives on today
in earth's grass? The quiet world, the silent sky
remain gazing with amazed eyes.
Centuries' accumulated sorrow-flame
suddenly blazes in the mind's depths
in the restless forest's horizon-courtyard
pain strikes.
In the yearning to express, pain-wonder in the eyes
blooms in muffled voice, in veiled whispers
that day. I remember that bygone
twilight. In the eastern evening, tired melody's
lingering,
murmur-filled in that silent dusk
fragrance had gathered well in grass, in flowers. Still
that day in formless beauty's depths,
suddenly forgetting all, in unforgiving eyes'
longing
I had to leave and go.