Saturday, May 10, 2014

A Vision

By X. Z. Shao

I will surely meet you there, so immense and boundless.
We are intimate, though we have no forms to kiss and embrace.
Nothing can ever be lost or need to be completed.

There is only light. I find no image of my Lord,
no smiling face I visualized through the veil of my tears,
no silhouette of the white Himalayas against the blue sky,
no prayer flags flying in the cool high-altitude wind,
no army of working ants dismantling a colossal deserted ship,
no sophisticated calculations in a marketplace or a show-off in a palace.

There is only a feeling of putting my way-worn feet in a stream,
a moment of the high plateau’s serenity flashing in my brain,
a pressing on my palm of a woman’s soft hand while we dance,
or a voice of a native minstrel vibrating my heart strings.

I forget about my Lord, unaware of his boat lying empty at a ferry on a rainy day.
I forget about you, unconscious of your gloomy face facing a lake on a dark night.
Yet, in this awesome immensity, all in one and a whole,
in absence of my eyes, ears, nose, mouth and hands. 

                              Autumn, 2006

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