POEM OF PROFOUND TRUTH

You don't understand, my friend, you don't understand.
Let me explain, not in words.
—for no one understands words—
but in my own dark way, which is crystal clear.
Darkly and clearly,
this is how I feel:
I am not concerned with the Rose of the Winds.
The South is beautiful, but the North
has its beauty too.
The moon is there for my house at night
and with my life I can infuse the earth
when it dries and cracks.
I know how to live in the wind and in the cloud
that drinks water from leaves.
One may not always be tall like the Red Giant ...—
One must know how to bend without breaking.
How to drink, and then
how to break the glass.
The city maybe a jungle at times.
What does it matter, one way or another?
Drinking sun and saltpeter from the ship's high mast orin prison,
it's all the same to me.
Wherever I am, I am. And safe.