A LULLABY AGAINST FEARS
Do you not see the doors swinging open, swinging shut?
With each breath in and out, the breeze of their coming and going.
.
Cold is the mountain and the white snow will wake you, will wake you.
There is only a moment to know more,
Only a moment to remember and forget.
Until we know what it is to dream it,
We shall never waken.
.
We thought we had removed from ourselves
The scent of death that followed us down
Through all the long centuries.
.
We thought the posy of politeness had done more
Than mask the fear.
As always, it is the smallest of things
Breaks open the delusion
Of genteel comfort.
.
Every room, every landscape, every moment,
Has a door that, should we walk through,
Would take us into other places, never to return.
They swing to and fro with our in and out of breath.
.
A door of leaves, a door of grasses,
A door of breezes, a door of riverbanks,
A door of whispers, a door of praise,
A door of sorrow, a door of breath.
These doors coming and going
Between the world you know
And the worlds you do not yet know.
How many have changed you beyond recognition,
Forgetting the song you were singing
To get lost in a tune unfamiliar,
That better becomes you?
So many doors, remembering and forgetting.
A door of small things, a slight imperceptible door,
And you have gone to be elsewhere,
In sunlight unsullied, in radiance of starlight.
—
