At times the pain of life is such that not living would be easier.
And at times the joy of life is too great to bear, and dying would be a relief.
Between the two, which are as directions left and right, I am always moving:
One foot falls to the left, the other to the right: walking between extremes.
Always the motion of my feet is repeated – left, right, left, right –
Describing the progression of a continual, forward movement.
Between the joys that are too ineffable,
and the pains that are too indescribable, life goes on.
Like an albatross on some days, plunging my feet thickly into the mud,
Pulling, straining, only to fall over into the next situation.
Or am I a turtle, making his way slowly,
or a lion ferociously stalking his prey?
Do I bound like a gazelle, or creep like a weasel?
Perhaps I beg my food from the ground like a swine sniffing out his truffles.
And yet some days I am a man, gazing out into the open West where there is only sea.
I go on walking until the waters rise about me, and hold me back,
and I am borne into an entirely new form of being.
And at times the joy of life is too great to bear, and dying would be a relief.
Between the two, which are as directions left and right, I am always moving:
One foot falls to the left, the other to the right: walking between extremes.
Always the motion of my feet is repeated – left, right, left, right –
Describing the progression of a continual, forward movement.
Between the joys that are too ineffable,
and the pains that are too indescribable, life goes on.
Like an albatross on some days, plunging my feet thickly into the mud,
Pulling, straining, only to fall over into the next situation.
Or am I a turtle, making his way slowly,
or a lion ferociously stalking his prey?
Do I bound like a gazelle, or creep like a weasel?
Perhaps I beg my food from the ground like a swine sniffing out his truffles.
And yet some days I am a man, gazing out into the open West where there is only sea.
I go on walking until the waters rise about me, and hold me back,
and I am borne into an entirely new form of being.