Além

Caminhamos

Seguindo passos já trilhados.
Aventuramo-nos por vias outrora percorridas
E, mesmo assim,
Somos capazes de chegar mais longe.
Longe, longe - cada vez mais longe.
Até onde? Não há limites:
O mundo é vasto demais,
E a vida, curta demais.
(Não desperdice tempo.)

Big blue eyes

Big blue eyes and a bald head:
A broken heart struggling to be mended.
There are some things we will never understand.
(There are some things that will never fade away.)

Big blue eyes, a bald head
And a broken heart overflowing love.

A broken heart full of love!

(Somehow, in Life's mysterious ways,

Some packages have to be completely torn apart
To fully reveal the gifts they hide inside.)

Crystal angels

Tiny little flocks fall from the sky:
It's the first snow of the year.
"Are you ready?"
As I reply affirmatively,
A host of angels rush after me.
Suddenly Ryokan comes to my mind
And in that very moment
I can grasp the extent
Of his immeasurable foolishness;
Of his boundless Enlightenment.
As clear as snow
And as warm as my heart.

Ctrl + Z

The evanescent, erasable
Disposable brushes of the pencil.
Words written and rewritten.
Maybe we invented it from our deepest desire
Of erasing, control-zeeing, our misdeeds
And rewriting them anew.
The old Romantic dream
Of perfecting every word and sentence.
If only life, too, had an eraser!
Everything and everyone could be perfect:
Words could be unsaid,
Arrows unthrown,
And lives could be unlived.
Everything would be perfect!
Or would it?

Ah, the Photoshop-life dream!
We waste so much of our lives
In the retelling.

3 a.m.

Sirens scream outside, far away.
Maybe another conscience going by?
Life comes and goes all the time
For what in this world never dies?

The wind blows gently, while crickets sing.
It is but a quiet Autumnal night.
Under the weak light of my lantern,
I (insomniac) decide to pour down some verses.
But, then again, what's the use of words,
When we have this warm, all-embracing silence?

민수

A cold Autumn Saturday.
Under the red trees,
The entire world shines warmly
Through that curious pair
Of kind little eyes.

(Will I ever see them again?)

The Mirror

How many letters were never written?
How many words never said?
How many lives never lived?
So many things I have already said and done
So many lives I have already lived:
Where have they gone?

Ah,
It all gets lost in the bottomless pool of time:
All my great monologues,
All my discussions, my relationships;
All my brilliant plans to end world hunger.
All my inventions, all my careers.
My promising futures:
All gone. For good.
The only thing that remains is now.
(And even that has just gone by.)