II.

I trust not premonitions
and I fear not omens.
I flee not from slander or poison.
There is no death.
We're all immortal.
All is immortal.
Fear not death at seventeen
nor at seventy.
There's only reality and light.
There's neither dark nor death
in this, our world.
We've reached the beach
and I am one of those who pull the nets in
when immortality arrives in batches.
Live in a house and it won't crumble.
I'll summon a century at will
enter and build my house in it.
That's why your children and your wives
all share my board
the table serving forefather and grandson.
The future is decided now.
And if I raise my hand
the five rays will remain to you.
My bones, like beams
held up each day.
I measured time with a surveyor's staff,
and passed through it as though the mountains.
I chose a century
according to my height.
We pressed on south,
raising dust in the steppes.
Weeds smoldered, a grasshopper played
touching horseshoes and prophesying
threatening me with death
quite like a monk.
I strapped my fate fast to my saddle
I rise up in the stirrups of the future as a boy.
I am content
with my immortality
with my blood coursing
from century to century.
I'd gladly give my life
for a safe corner of warmth
if life's swift needle
did not draw me on
as though I were a thread.