The Tale of the Sorrowful Diver

 

Sunlight falls.
Today too, feathers slipped and morning came.
Just yesterday, yesterday went! And with it went
joy, sorrow. Both are gone.
Every spring our courtyard pomegranate blooms.
I kissed that flower, gave it some strength.
Today I see, in exchange for so much, I received so little.
It occurs to me, the world doesn't run on exchange!
My heart says, the world runs on exchange after all!


In the blazing Sahara, tears of the brain,
nerveless eternal war, new revolution,
yet my beloved's face
burns red as blood.


They ring bells, they bury me alive,
in the wet grave grass laughs;
truly, one day,
the sun will fall here.
My father is dying, my son is dying,
the sequence of color's roar is dying
and,
I search for the meaning of knots behind me.


Again everything ends.
All that is ancient—
doesn't even know itself, isn't something newer than that?
Why did our weary laughter wake on life's bed?
Why should we strike with bloodied fists
at just one innocent lion's gate
among thousands upon thousands of black miles?


On winter evenings I stop singing sharply and hurl questions—
Why do our ancestors and grandchildren
keep their waterfall-long hair braided like rope?
Why do we devour each other when we're not even hungry?
And why does our spine bend and settle
when conscience travels through it?
And why don't we want to lie under waterfalls in springs clear as tears?


Like you, we too see darkness with large round eyes. We see
whirlpool spinning, whirlpool spinning whirlpools in whirl.
When you sit quietly for just one minute,
why do you still see something more?
Is it because you see that you closed your eyes?
Is closing your eyes the rule when you see?


I saw a revered diver. I saw
he was released, and immediately he fell.
He fell, and he rose.
The moss-green water wailed and swallowed his throat,
then cast him out again.
Because he had brought strange things:
brilliant fish,
crowns of kings,
a beggar's weeping,
shadows of the invisible world,
cries for help.
Perhaps some carried message
of approaching unknown time,
the tremor of sinking ships,
the pitiful gaze in a murderer's eyes,
a dead bride's smile.


He had failed, given up hope of life,
otherwise he could never have imagined it;
though the free fishermen all laughed,
and what treasure was in their hands,
where it came from and why,
you will never know.