1. I feel as if my lifetime is its lifetime, and I
Am a brother of those who drown the lands with floods.

2. I turn my gaze to the sky like its gaze,
And observe what it regarded before my time.

3. Though we are distant, the space between us
Brings together there the two moons.

4. And I read in the scrolls of the heavens lines
That bring the twinkling stars near.

5. I made the expanse of God a dwelling for my thoughts—
So they might wander in the world without restraint,

6. Passing like lightning, bending
When the sharpness of flight has exhausted them.

7. I deal with a secret whose veil is not lifted,
And that is the pasture of my heart and my bliss.

8. The languages of wind and sea have told me many things,
And so has each shining, fluttering meteor.

9. But they are locked to the absent mystery—
Gathered around the innermost heart of the moment.

10. I grew tired of my thoughts wandering in dark space
And the folding of their wings from throbbing.

11. And my soul wearily returned to me,
Moaning from excess and turmoil.

12. Yearning for a shade of ease and a sure rest,
And the length of a tether, loose and effortless.

13. Would that she never lifts her eye in her moment
Or meets with any shame among mankind!

14. I roamed in a vast dominion with no boundary
Save a far horizon, endless and free.

15. Show me a bond that makes the body sweat when touched
And smolders like ribs on glowing coals!