Venice masks

Saturday 15 May 2021

Return - Phi Hoàng

Let me return the sunlight to the sky,
the cloud to the mountain, this life to the void.

Let me return this love to eternity:
bare, cold, empty, as the moon’s silent course.

Reluctantly, watching fate fade away,
let me return these burdens to the heap of time.

I follow the wind, returning to heaven,
I follow the water, returning to the cascades.

My heart open wide, I return,
a wave in the ocean’s vastness, a breaker at the shore.

Now, all that is left           – this half stanza –
I return it all,                           the rushes rustle at the riverbank.

I sit
I brush off my pain
Tathātā
   Colourless
The colour of clarity

Phi Hoàng (born 1954) Vietnam
Translated by O Mayeux
Tathātā - Buddhist term: "suchness" the ultimate nature of all things, as expressed in phenomena but inexpressible in language

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