It is a small and perfect thing
This ring which on my body swings
And when I hold it to my chest
I know it mingles too, upon your breast
For you brought it to me from Tibet
Now years and years ago
And when I feel faint or oppressed
I hold it to my heart, and rest.
Does each branch of a tree
Each twisting beauty of asymmetry
Feel itself unfree?
It both depends and is depended on;
It both extends and is extended from—
One part of one great tree;
一棵在林森里,
Like you, of course, and me
One pair in this great human-verse
That sometimes rhymes but often hurts
一Yet even when life seems its worst
We still might laugh in fits and bursts;
The branch just lives, and loves the sun;一
He trusts the spring will always come.
It is too much to think of you
Too much the doors hold sway
Too much to keep, fixed, in some words
Too much, even, to dream away
Too much the gap of space and time
Two borders binding blind
Two twining souls, like trees in chinese scrolls
Two hearts, two hearths, two minds
Two coasts that never meet
Two sighs swell sea skies sweep
2019, 2020, 2021