When I run out of vacuities To narrate or when you had Enough - you nod your head in denial But mon chere, I know that point Shall come too, we shall recede into Either The regretful waving of two adjacent tree branches Or The cawing of two heckling crows in them.

Absolution is all that I, a journeyman, Seek. On maps, in tales of sailors, In fables of nomads, in my dreamings Where I see others tied to the arc of moon, Sleepwalking, chanting, “Absolution, Absolution”.
Is there a place, set on a hill, at the end of an echoing vale that bears this name?

Bradford pears now wear lampshades, drunk on light of the stars. Something flows in them that flows in me. It is more than the wind. It is two rivers, blue and green, intersecting, on which I am approaching Absolution.

My griefs are bees tied to strings Streaming from my body. I speak In the flute and the melisma. These are the ores patterning seams of rock, on which rain falls and washes my atoms to Absolution.

Has my heart gone to sleep? Have the beehives of my dreams stopped working, the waterwheel of the mind run dry, scoops turning empty, only shadow inside?

No, my heart is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. Not asleep, not dreaming— its eyes are opened wide watching distant signals, listening on the rim of vast silence.

Translated by Alan S. Trueblood