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

Source: Modern Poetry in Translation

Tathātā - Buddhist term: "suchness" the ultimate nature of all things, as expressed in phenomena but inexpressible in language