The truth-seeker keeps searching

 
My introduction: I am a silent, cool seeker of truth.
What I show is this—my
cunning, riddling smile. My purpose: to search for my birth.
In a false twilight I cast spells like a cautious spy,
that magic isn't false, if
the straw throne beneath me remains intact.
The evening that descended, sweeping away dust, was dizzy, cold, bluish.
And when the emperor put on his clothes,
everyone saw, and stayed calm.


I was kneeling, gathering roses
until I had enough to birth a proper bouquet.
Seeing me, some mad people said,
days don't pass anymore, the days of passing are coming to an end.
I'm barely alive, breaking apart bit by bit,
still thinking with the kind of existence meant for prayer,
that I once lived—this much is true!


I call the mad ones and console them,
you know how night, all night long, whips with wind,
why didn't you become a vibrant person—
don't even think of asking this, don't dare complain!
Hearing this they grew madder still,
watching them I felt
they had come to meet me in some past too,
each had a wild celestial body, like cosmic bacteria.


Beautiful, soft little calves grazing,
small daisies on the mountainside,
thousands of ancient gray foam above the sea.
Chaos has become largely unconscious yet constant existence,
and perhaps some people are wonderfully happy with all this.


………Through darkness rises a velvet-soft body,
forgetting anxiety I plunge in with speed,
a merciful evening appears.
I saw my shop of consciousness
closing its shutters, descending lower and lower,
and I can clearly see who I might be, how much I might become.


Binding the golden fountain of dawn's first light
to the fatigue of Naples' dark blue sky,
I welcome afternoon in Vesuvius's embrace.
There some questions have been prepared by burning delicious meat,
and on the seashore
a beggar—happy; happy, therefore half-naked.


Once, when night returned, the moon kept its face hidden.
Our torchlight fell all around,
I saw our lanterns had blown away in the wind long ago.
Carrying sorrow in our hearts, willingly losing some battles,
we walked toward the forest. We moved then like reptiles.


The condition was: we could burn, but
we couldn't sparkle. That hurts the eyes too much!
In fear, we didn't burn at all!


We looked at the lives of those who had set the conditions.
Glittering, and there ruling was terrible darkness!
So we stepped forward, became happy thinking.
In that forward step, we can't see meaning or chaos,
can't even see each other.
Only a spark, even in that darkness
had spread across our lowered heads,
we couldn't understand despite thinking constantly—
will we truly kill the dragon today?
Shall we kill it then?


The moon still keeps its face hidden, our
torches have burned out long ago, our
lanterns have blown away in the wind.
The leader, foolish leader waits for that night
when no one will cry,
everyone will see their remaining consciousness has also collapsed.