MEMORY HOLDS HOPE…
Memory holds hope
And hope, the wish to drift through woods
Below branches and the undersea light of autumn
This is how I returned to myself after love
Uselessly I had chased blazing suns
The delight of my life’s emptiness
So I gazed at isles afar
The tides of passion and boredom
But dawn came quick and I left to climb the hill
There I entered with a broken heart
The sealed enclosure of a sacred site
So I learned to look at objects and the flight of birds
Everything had a beating heart and dressed itself in stars
It didn’t matter if summer was sprouting or winter was wearing
Whether the burning sun or the icy rain covered us
What mattered was living
Launching my song into the atmosphere
From the innate power of effort
Springing from the deepest fiery chord
I reveled in those meadows far from the tyranny of cities
Because in solitude our strength flourishes
As it moves along the great river of life
I NEARED THE EDGE OF THE WOODS…
I neared the edge of the woods with autumn’s scattered pith
With fallen leaves and all the worn pulp of life
There, the owl’s shriek conceals the birds’ lament
As if somehow its sound descends scarlet
Finding a love among so many little birds is hard
And when the flower blooms, despair overcomes it
Because love keeps our bodies upright
Though a brutal sweep may wipe out the species
Its crimson passion ignites with touch
From the purest essence of its bound being
And thus it wraps its spirit in robes of feathers
LIKE A RIVER I HAVE CROSSED…
Like a river I have crossed hills and trails and plains
Because life flows unstoppable
We go around and around again to finally reach the sea
Its waters heal the heat of the body and the mind
Thus arrived the silent stunning day
Whose light overwhelmed joy and suffering
Until ecstasy extinguished in a warm embrace
Oh how to house its music in the soul
Stirred by the sweet song of its sound
How could it hold the weight of the planet
With the notes of universal harmony
Moving words toward poetry
Transforming language into pride and passion
In the home of one expressing unchained
Oh fervent torrents
Oh starry curses
Take life before the word
Grounded in the golden fortune of the verb
And its incarnation in the poem
Because this is how its horizon breaks
The same as in the depths of the sea
But in the end it reached me too and its torturous wake
Shards of fire and shards of water
Blossomed on the back of my hand
Moving into the mantel of blood
Translated by Amy Olen
