INCANTATION

Sunlight can’t convey the faintest warmth.

A river won’t bear one clear drop of water.

Planting can’t bring rice to old age.

No window can frame

a handful of groves, a patch of wilderness.

Silence won’t grant peace,

birthdays no rebirth,

nor smiles happiness.

No mirror shows one’s self.

Thinking yields no solitary truth,

solitude no free moment.

Gardens can’t surrender fragrance,

nor the wounded soul explain its tears.

A letter can’t carry a definite address.

Longing won’t deliver the beloved.

Light cannot open staring eyes.

Darkness reveals neither ugliness nor buried evil.

Statues can’t show real faces.

An embrace won’t contain a flesh and blood body.

Biography can’t account for an entire life.

When I behold the sky,

my feeble words do not strike fire.