Translation led by Dr. David Coolidge, Sub-Faculty of Musicology and Lye Lyric Poetry
MEAL SCENE:
In the family home, swaddled by the sun and air, we eat at the table you built from the body of a tree.
Our house is built from trees. Trees give out the air; sun rears the trees; trees shimmer in rushes of air.
At the table we eat gifts from the trees and the soil. Seeds sown by the wind and laid by my hands. Outside, the breeze touches the windows. Our children's laughter is delirious; they dance from currents of laughter. Trees go dancing with the breeze.
Without them, we cease to exist; without us, their virtue is unwritten, destined to vanish.
The world respires; surfaces lined in amber; an evening scene of plenty.
BEFORE SLEEP, BREATHING:
Before sleep – breathing, listening, and blind – we lie in our bed next to one another. We rest in our home, furled in an undressed field.
The wood of the frame, rushes that we lie on. Rushes underneath, our skin cloaked by fur. Breath meeting breath, gales circling the crops outdoors.
The wind fills the world with the breath of its life like water to a basin. The light from an eye flows into mine from a sleeping glance; rivers and moons of the body reflect and coil in the darkness.
Spirits cloak the walls in reverent quiet, ancient and smiling. The soil outside stirs in its sleep under blankets of grass. Motioning trees envelop and nest an eternity of stillness.
Acres of midnight whisper and turn; leaves cross the plain in their boats. Unending calm, the body of the landscape submerged. In the silence, two stems fall asleep in their beds.
EVOCATION OF MARRIAGE:
Waking and sleeping. The river's song softly goes. Unseen certainties of the world billow.
You and the hills and you; the world entire held in a body. You above the world, as a stem, outgrowing the whole. Forever, hidden in the silent rotations of chaos.
EVENINGS EVER WEAKER:
Evenings ever weaker paint your workshop red. The still days have left their heavy dust. Sighing and silence, the wind outside. I feel you press against my shoulder and the horizon gently bows.
I watch the air unfold in a mirror. Your branches reach through the open door towards me. A voice from another room; breathing columns of shadow.
Our children play outside, your palm combs the grass they walk in. Traces of our labour pock the blank clouded seas. Sleeping bales go unborn, their pale stems not returning. Echoes cry your name. Swollen crests on the plain entire.
The fireplace is singing. The hills are colourless; your voice is disappearing. Our home is come upon, besieged by wordless invitations of the night.
NIGHT'S INVITATION:
Take your sights off the land; place your hand in mine. Errant circles of the world are ancient and smiling.
Flowing visions of ruin, a voice from the silence. Breathing bodies of the world are trembling and wide-eyed. Hear the breeze unfurl; nightfall is singing. The fields grow darker, our shadows are shrinking.
The body gently rows, our spirits untethered. Feel my song go quiet; thoughts are waning. The sleeper lying still, as if unending.
LIFE IN THE BODY:
For an instant, the life in the body unveiled. Ageless sunrise in a notebook, sketches of leaves on the brown face of the earth. Valley to valley, suspended in the vaults of our eyes.
Time stalls, caught on a bed of stones for sea life. From an empty page, the past grows deeper; our lives take new forms and seem insecure.
For an instant, you built and I sang. We rested and the grass grew tall. We whispered and the trees drew near. We closed our eyes and drew a great veil. The threads of a moon fell upon the lake. The night firmly took the fields in its grasp. We acted and drew our frontiers. The giving and the given prevailed.
SONG OF BEING:
For an instant, a being complete and unquestioned was loved by itself and glowed. All was created. The world we knew was revealed as we spoke its name and the light that it gave held still.