THE SECRET LORE OF MY TRIBE

The secret of the swans:

they love the earth so strongly

that at twilight they bow to her,

and despite their broken hearts,

they free her

to wander solitary

amidst the clamour of the frogs.

The secret of the fish

is that they can return.

People cannot do that.

People are homeless-born.

The tears never return to the eye,

and the hand that drops from the forehead

tears away a different worry ever.

Autumn is long

and everything leaves,

but no age replaces the golden one.

Such is the secret of the fish.

Thus told me the sleepers.

The winds blows, the window changes,

yet one feat still continues.

It is the last to depart

and a roar overpowers it

to seal up one world.

The trees never die.

When a tree withdraws,

it shakes off its leaves

and alters into one more change,

one more thought of the Great Tree,

which like an invisible pyramid

dreams above the earth.

One of the hues in this dawn

was that tree that died yesterday

and today pensively looked at us for the last time.