A PLEAD

it has been four years on the road,
I too feel four years old...

Unknown is known at the end of the road,
There is somebody always waiting.
Could tearful partings be in fact so kind?
I think in awe as I unwrap my Present.
Yet whom to thank-,
My yesterday? , My road? ,
Perchance my feet that walked?
Or maybe you, my new and lovely friend?
I would renounce those credits to be mine
and praise instead the sap that feeds the branches of the tree of life,
the fruit of which I’m tasting.

I find and I am found without searching;
the end of the road is just the beginning.
To stop, to walk, to run, to go aback –
am I the one to give the pace?,
To choose the path?, To know my need?,
Am I my guide?, Am I at all in all or any?
I sing with the sea towards which runs every stream,
where I am just one drop of water.

Is patient he who awaits my silence,
or does he know at all that he is waiting?
One song comes out through me but not by me;
the words are new and so the language.
All who hear are stilled;
I myself listen with attention:
distant becomes close without effort,
distinct becomes familiar.
Understanding comes in the meaning
which lies beyond the language.

I want to touch, but feel nothing,
I want to smell – it has none.
Timeless ether it is made of,
one’s consciousness of it
the only measure.
An instant that lies between Past and Future:
The Present – I dare to receive.
The image in Life’s ancient mirror is always new.
I look Now, for it would change too soon,
and see the mystery revealed.

The spirit of the sacred mountain had spoken,
The desert wind had whispered,
the forest told, the ocean murmured
to every single man,
the first as well as the last,
brave or coward,
slow or fast:
You can possess, but can not claim,
What belongs to you is never yours.

For not even the dawn can claim it’s light,
nor the seed it's power to become a tree;
the eagle is not the lord of the flight,
but it was the flight that had called him
out of the nest into its majestic service.

The wind does not claim it's eternal breath;
the mountain does not claim it's rocks
nor the views that open from it's top.

The jungle does not claim it's animals;
the leaf does not claim it's fall;
the sparrow does not claim its song.

The desert does not claim it's sand;
the ocean does not claim it's water;
the sky does not claim it´s colour.

I'd learn from these forever free,
who have nothing yet have everything;
they belong to nowhere yet belong everywhere;
no-one knows them yet everyone knows them;
they have always existed and will forever exist;

Would that their spirits be a guide to me.