on the joy of beginning

Oh joy of beginning! Oh early morning!

First grass, when none remembers

What grass looks like. Oh first page of the book

Long awaited, the surprise of it. Read it

Slowly, all too soon the unread part

Will be too thin for you. And the first splash of water

On a sweaty face! The fresh

Cool shirt. Oh the beginning of love! Oh wandering glance!

Oh the beginning of work! Pouring oil

Into the cold machine. First touch and first hum

Of the engine springing to life! And first drag

Of smoke filling the lungs! And you too

New thought!

view with a grain of sand

We call it a grain of sand,
but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.
It does just fine, without a name,
whether general, particular,
permanent, passing,
incorrect, or apt.

Our glance, our touch means nothing to it.
It doesn't feel itself seen and touched.
And that it fell on the windowsill
is only our experience, not its.
For it, it is not different from falling on anything else
with no assurance that it has finished falling
or that it is falling still.

The window has a wonderful view of a lake,
but the view doesn't view itself.
It exists in this world
colorless, shapeless,
soundless, odorless, and painless.

The lake's floor exists floorlessly,
and its shore exists shorelessly.
The water feels itself neither wet nor dry
and its waves to themselves are neither singular nor plural.
They splash deaf to their own noise
on pebbles neither large nor small.

And all this beheath a sky by nature skyless
in which the sun sets without setting at all
and hides without hiding behind an unminding cloud.
The wind ruffles it, its only reason being
that it blows.

A second passes.
A second second.
A third.
But they're three seconds only for us.

Time has passed like courier with urgent news.
But that's just our simile.
The character is inverted, his hasts is make believe,
his news inhuman.

a callarse

Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos. 

Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningún idioma,
por un segundo detengámonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.
 
Sería un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estaríamos juntos
en un inquietud instantánea.
 
Los pescadores del mar frío
no harían daño a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraría sus manos rotas.
 
Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrían un traje puro
y andarían con sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.
 
No se confunda lo que quiero
con la inacción definitiva:
la vida es sólo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.
 
Si no pudimos ser unánimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamás
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos enseñe
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.
 
Ahora contaré hasta doce
y tú te callas y me voy.