I am a wandering spirit, carrying my burns,
through tangled years, through hearts not mine;
I’ve tasted loss, and sorrow’s turns —
but gods? They grinned from their divine.
I drank cold wine from frozen glass,
and tears from lips, from bodies deep;
I saw the women love would bless,
and those whose passion fell asleep.
Yet still I hear — the heat, the sound, the cicada’s cry,
its flight, a whim of aching art,
its eyes, a trembling lantern’s sigh,
its mating dance, an aquarelle of heart.
I broke that bond, that shade, that vow,
and walked the world alone again;
in dreams I courted madness now,
as Brunei’s finger wears its gem.
East and West, streets and shrines,
all fleshly light grows dim, remote;
the cicada’s bitter, their hazy balms,
anoint the quiet soul God wrote.
And all was torn, unravelling in halves —
two thirsts, two paths, two trembling lines:
the love of the cicada — craving fire,
and the sinful love — that breaks its wings in flight.
Then time itself began to close its ring,
like light that pierced existence’ dusk;
and I perceived — She is God in ecstasy,
their essence one — a single pulse.
Within her face — celestial vice,
the light that burns in God’s design;
and in the Lord — a living flame of voice,
that sings through tenderness divine.
Not two — oh no — but one fair visage,
where mortal love and mist entwine;
I fell before it — yet her gaze was clear,
a sacred gift returned through time.
I seek no more — I’m found in loss
the essence wind and tears convey;
Love and God — the cicada’s song,
the exile’s ghost at midnight’s bay.
And if one meeting yet awaits,
let it be revelation’s climb —
in her face I’ll see that gate,
that leads through night to timeless springtime.
Still in my breast — that ancient fear,
that joy might bind me to the clay;
I knew her once — I touched the divine,
and maybe — I keep him in me today.