(translated by Coleman Barks)

There was a dawn I remember
when my soul heard something
from your soul. I drank water
from your spring and felt
the current take me.

*

A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.
That's how I hold your voice.

*

What can I say to someone so curled up with wanting,
so constricted in his love?
Break your pitcher against a rock.
We don't need any longer
to haul pieces of the ocean around.

*

There is a secret medicine
given only to those who hurt so hard
they can't hope.
The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.

*

Don't hand me another glass of wine.
Pour it in my mouth.
I've lost the way to my mouth.

*

A candle is made to become entirely flame.
In that annihilating moment
it has no shadow.
It is nothing but a tongue of light
describing a refuge.

*

Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting your net
into it, and waiting so patiently?

*

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

*

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.