Thoughts in Bonsai: Twelve

1. With this cup of poison in my hand, I swear and declare: I truly wanted to live!

2. - Poet, how do you write so beautifully?
- I crush within me the writings that are even better than those you praise.
- Why?
- That is the rule!

3. - Poet, how do you feel when you write?
- My body goes numb—I cannot say more than this.

4. - Poet, do you find writing painful or joyful?
- Neither. I write only to leave behind some words, some letters, merely to repay the debt of birth.

5. You gossip about my drinking? Ha ha... Go ahead, drink as much as you please! Then write a two-line poem and show me!

6. Those who cannot touch small joys—
great joys never cross their threshold!

7. Come see me once, for the last time.
Bring white roses, won't you? In that final seeing, everything must be white—you know this, don't you?

8. Do not think me an enemy, do not envy my writing. Someday your next generation will use these very writings of mine as their dictionary!

9. Morning has come again!
Will I never learn to sleep?

10. I have written you a letter—will you just touch it once? That alone will give me my answer!

11. Why are you laughing so?
Feeling terribly sad?

12. I only wanted to see you a little,
and you came wearing a watch!

13. I have arranged my shoulder; tell me, on which side will you rest your head to weep?

14. I let you go, without clinging, without fear.
A lover who can bear his beloved's tears is no lover at all!

15. If you can truly lay yourself before me with all your faults and virtues, you will have me.

16. - Buy me a sari.
- Where does a poet have such money? I have nothing but poetry!
- Then fill my old white cloth with poems. That will be my new sari.

17. I never lied to you, yet you misunderstood me.
And though you deceived me, you received forgiveness from me!

18. I want to become earth. O earth, will you not take me? Merge me with yourself.

19. - Poet, who is a true human being?
- One who knows the difference between wanting and greed!

20. - Poet, why do you never speak with your beloved?
- Her questions and answers, I know them all, just as she knows mine. So we only gaze into each other's eyes—what need is there to speak!