We present this work in honor of the poet’s 65th birthday.

I demand to know the whys, even the whens the how and where
and that hushed question that strangles me and lives in silence

And then you answer
Majestic
an immense green buck
water country
where the dreamers gather.

You speak to me
great sea
curtain of the sky

and your wings perform like pages
of a book whose author knows all

like pages, sea

and like petals of a rose that never sheds.

Translation by Jacqueline Osborn