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| The Chinese Travelogue | (1986)
If you could dull its perspicuity, free it from chaos, limit its gleam,
liken it to a grain of dust, then it would seem to exist clearly.
| | Lao-Tse |  |
15
They say, they have gone on the white road
and the cold, starry sky. they have gone and we will
go too one day:
stepping across the water from stone to stone,
stepping across parting from planet to planet
like a singer’s voice from note to note.
There everyone will definitely meet,
they say, whitened by the Milky Way.
I confess that so many times my heart has approached
the forbidden threshold, how many times has it beat fast
promising something to someone unknown:
no one is seeking me, no one is worried about me,
no one will ask me to stay with them.
Oh. not from the world s grief,
its so wonderful behind the world’s door,
but because I don’t want,
don’t want my sins,
because it is time to go
and ask forgiveness for everything –
you see, no one can survive
without this bread of shining.
It is time to go there
where everything is compassion.
Richard McKane
***
15
By the white way, by the cold and starry cloud they strode,
it is said, and we, too, will go:
fording the water from boulder to boulder,
fording separation from planet to planet,
like a singing voice going from note to note.
It is said that we’ll all meet there, bleached
by the milky road.
How often – I’ll admit – has my heart, beating heavily,
approached the forbidden threshold
promising I don’t know whom:
no one is searching for me, no one will mourn
no one will beg: remain with me!...
It’s not earthly grid that makes miraculous what waits
behind the earth’s door.
it’s because we don’t want, don’t want our trespassing,
because the time has arrived
to ask forgiveness for all, since
none can survive
without this bread of radiance.
It’s time to go where
everything is compassion.
Andrew Wachtel | |
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