Four Short Poems

i.

Among a hundred million roses, one harmless thornweeps to escape the lover's hand, its chest torn open.

ii.

I lack rice — you lack a husband.I want the arrow — you lack the river.

iii.

The river flies in the wind; in the chest, the eyes full of the ash of the past.Rain is the brother of the sea. Carefully, I break through the waves.

iv. The Heart Is a Bird

Because the heart is a birdthe heart has no permanent house.The heart is very poor.It has no shoes,no clothes.The heart has no school and does not know its letters,owes no duty to a job,is in no hurry after social standing.

The heart sleeps in the house of love,wakes in the house of separation,flies with pain,walks holding the finger of neglect,

and writhes along with life.

Because the heart is a bird, the sky is its range,and the trees are its own shelter —but not a house. A house is nothing.A house is its prison.

Birds have no border and no nationality.Because the heart is a birdit goes into the house of whoever calls it like the sky,whoever sets out milk and banana.

The heart is, at bottom, milk-rice or grainscattered on the ground in front of a bird.

And the heart is finally alone with death, in a silent shape,going round and round the edges of the dark.