Year after year
I dug in the earth
looking for the blue of heaven
only to feel
the pile of dirt
choking me
until once in the dead of night
I tripped on a broken brick
and kicked it into the air
and saw that without a thought
I had smashed the bones
of the empty sky
Muso Soseki (1275 – 1351) Japan
Translated by M.S. Merwin
Source: East window: the Asian poems, selected and translated by W.S. Merwin, Copper Canyon Press, 1998
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