For ages the rain keeps knocking at each thing
and asking: “Are you there?” But I say: “No,
I’m not here at all.” The rain is a Zen master.
Maybe it was poured out of heaven for clapping
with a single, too-transparent hand?
Sit down,
(For he who fails to tend his garden
will be overgrown by a wild, wild god),
listen to a free lecture, and pointlessly
repeat after it a quiet little “yes”
that will destroy you.

(Drop by drop, like on that great evening
when the peddler wanted to sell us roses,
but we didn’t want any roses, we wanted
the whole of life.)


Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones