Where the flame of divinity glows,
there I join my hands in prayer,
those who sacrificed their head everyday,
created a humanitarian temple,
but at whose funeral site,
no great stone was overturned nor even a candle burnt,
there I join my hands in prayer
Where most my thoughts, there least mine eye is striking;
Where least I come, there most my heart abideth;
Where most I love, I never show my liking;
From what my mind doth hold, my body slideth:
I careless seem, where most my care dependeth;
A coy regard, where most my soul attendeth.
O Lord, where is the Truth?
'Where your Beloved is.'
Who is my Beloved, Who?
'In Whom your life is peace.'
[Excerpt from “My Flute”]
Try to keep them, poet,
those erotic visions of yours,
however few of them there are that can be stilled.
Put them, half-hidden, in your lines.
Try to hold them, poet,
when they come alive in your mind
at night or in the noonday brightness.
When the winter chrysanthemums go,
there's nothing to write about
but radishes.
Translated by Robert Hass
When the reaper lays the sickle by,
And taketh down the flail:
When all we prized, and all we planned,
Is ripe and stored at last,
And Autumn looks across the land,
And ponders on the Past.
When the prophet, a complacent fat man,
Arrived at the mountain-top,
He cried: "Woe to my knowledge!
I intended to see good white lands
And bad black lands,
But the scene is grey."
When the prophet, a complacent fat man,
Arrived at the mountain-top,
He cried: "Woe to my knowledge!
I intended to see good white lands
And bad black lands,
But the scene is grey."
When the Day came -
The Day I had lived and died for -
The Day that is not in any calendar -
Clouds heavy with love
Showered me with wild abundance.
Inside me, my soul was drenched.
Around me, even the desert grew green.
When she says
Goodbye
All my days
Do die
Life loses light
Embracing night.
