All the passions of my long life
Are dust in the road behind me,
And all of that precious dust
Was nothing more than foolishness.
The trees around me
Have no names,
And the wind I feel
Blows from no direction.
The river I see is just a river
That stirs no memory,
And I know not where it goes
Nor whence it comes,
And I know not that I know not.
The rapids roar,
But they say nothing,
And I hear nothing,
But the sound they make.
I know the ones I love and loved,
And love comes flowing back to me,
And love is all that matters here,
By this river, under this tree.
Reconstruction of an old memory