The river of time ages
The river of time sighs
In the same distance of life
There used to be a thousand waves
There used to be a thousand sighs

Now that the river is senile
In its movement through space
In its movement through time
In the same distance of life
There are only a hundred waves
There are only a hundred sighs

For
The river of time ages
As the river of time sighs
And
The river of time sighs
As the river of time dies-

It once lived for our existence
It once lived for our lives
Now we await its death
Now we await its perishing
To repay the debts-

All the plunder of lost love
All the plunder of lost lives
All the plunder of lost souls
All the plunder of lost minds

All the plunder of lost hearts
Recovered, healed, shattered, and repeat
Till only what is truly within remains

Love,
Without pain.

The Metaphysical Dancer:
A Wintry Waltz of Being

By: Yitkbel Yue Xing ****
Original Chinese version written: Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Translated: Wednesday, January 30, 2020 12:41 a.m.

The way through eternity
The road of souls
From the invisible shapeless
Unto the invisible shapeless
As if an unseen dancer in winter
Slowly putting on layers of snow
Fleeting timely coats

A layer of consciousness
A layer of memories
A layer of stardust
A layer of flesh and blood
Gradually a form manifests
Gradually a self manifests
Till we see life
Till we see change
Till we see death

Everything, every gain and every loss
Everything, every birth and every demise
Awareness, being, time, and death
Will eventually fade, seep, melt away
Leaving only the invisible shapeless dancer
Invisible and shapeless as ever
Still dancing
Till eternity

If the beginning and end were
If the beginning and end are
If the beginning and end will always be
An enlightening everlasting dream
Why must we wake for a fleeting
Indivisible blink
Experiencing all the clashes and separation
Experiencing all the love and hatred
Seemingly meaninglessly brief good
Seemingly meaninglessly brief evil

I can't take away these words
I can't take away these memories
I can't take away any fragment of your being
With me
But I must have stolen a trace of your soul
A trace of your light
Hiding them within
Within me
Within my soul
Here and there we clash
Creating the sparks
That lit up heaven
That warmed up the sky

Is it thus
Is it thus
Is it thus
For us to long for home
We must wander to the afar
Life
Consciousness
Being
Time
Death
As our lost souls drift
As our lost souls drift
As our lost souls drift
We long for the eternal home beyond


The way through eternity
The road of souls
From the invisible shapeless
Unto the invisible shapeless
We will all eventually shed the snow
And continue our dance unseen
As the earthly melt away

Melt away the consciousness
Melt away the memories
Melt away the stardust
As the flesh and blood decay
Slowly the form fades
Slowly the soul manifests
Till we lose all the changes
Till we lose all the losses
Till we lose all the death

Everything, every gain and every loss
Everything, every birth and every demise
Awareness, being, time, and death
Will eventually fade, seep, melt away
Leaving only the invisible shapeless dancer
Invisible and shapeless as ever
Still dancing
Till eternity

If the beginning and end were
If the beginning and end are
If the beginning and end will always be
An obscured everlasting dream
Do we really gain nothing when we return to slumber?
Not even the warmth in our souls
Brought on by the melting of the snow?
Or the eternal folds and faults
Scars and bumps that altered the shape of our core
From all of our profound encounters and collisions
With each other?

I can't take away these words
I can't take away these memories
I can't take away any fragment of your being
With me
But I must have stolen a trace of your soul
A trace of your light
Hiding them within
Within me
Within my soul
Here and there we clash
Creating the sparks
That lit up heaven
That warmed up the sky

So it is thus
So it is thus
So it is thus
For us to shine even brighter
We must temporarily be
Life
Consciousness
Being
Time
Death
Let our parted souls combine
Let our parted souls combine
Let our parted souls combine
Embracing ever more brilliantly beyond

When the snow melts away
When I return to the eternal place
When I forget time, being and space
Blissfully, unknowingly dancing familiar moves of nameless grace
The twinges of lightning
From the marks of existing
Will remind me of our inseparable timely days

As it is thus
As it is thus
As it is thus
For us to truly cherish the hereafter
The place above decay and matter
We must experience
Life
Consciousness
Being
Time
Death
So our witless souls would remember
So our witless souls would remember
So our witless souls would remember
Only love that could palpitate in dreams
Transcend matter
Matters
And
Would never be forgotten

I'm the dreamer who reaps eternity.

If thou knowest not what could be known
How could thou be wise to the unknowable?
Instead of the fulfilment of wisdom
Plentiful, with golden overlooked fields of wheat
They hunger for the unquenchable faint stars
And gain not the warmth of heaven's retreat
But the stoic cold indifference of heavens afar
So
In the barren I'm destined to be
All of antiquity granted to me
A callow child sowing wizened words
Lo and behold as they grow unobscured
Wild and free
As only TRUTH after sifts of time remains
To be resown
In fertile old earth and as new seed
And
In the harvest
The fruits of
What is rooted to eternity
Will be reaped

Child
Don't fear the silence
Feel alive as you hear your heart beating
Don't shun your doubts, emptiness, uncertainty
You must have the wavering void of darkness
To hold a dream
That is not devoid of
Wonder
Unwavering indefatigable wonder

Is there an unknown quiet hidden prophecy
Clawing to be freed from deep within
An instinct with the shape of my shied soul
As swallows yearning for the sure south
I had danced with the same faith of finding
My wings a thousand quills across the keys
Praying the given words and ebbing melodies
In waltzing secrecy may show me
And let me hear, let me see, let me be

The sound of cherubim’s laughter in the wind
The rain and darkening clouds soothing
Hearts weary of ennui beneath languid sun
Minds anticipating enlightenment of dawn
And souls waiting, silently, patiently for my song

All the woes wake the sweetness of being
As the bitterness of ale cradles dreams
I could rise higher than if I'd never fallen
There must be darkness for stars to be seen

This must be my destiny
All these lost ways and wandering
This must be my destiny
I can hear whence the world stops singing
This must be my destiny
To mark wayward path without markings
This must be my destiny
I can still see whence light only modestly reigns
In the desert, to the gazer, heavens will finally reveal
What were, are and will be
Like a dream, timeless they'll tell me
Everything

Do you feel the pull before you see the star
Just as your light is here before you are
For I can sense a force of glory leading me far
Beyond the great earth of ashes and dust
As if the gate guarding my dreams is ajar
A stray light is peeking through the dark
A rung of the ladder, shadows mark
A feather falls, a sleeve caught
The blade of light points the path

The winding green path that hides the valley
The crown of oak that shields the bard
Sunshine too harsh for young hearts
Shadow coveted by dreamers of love
Yearning to reunite beyond time and space afar

Just as quietness calls for sweet longings
The sailors they drift to slumber against tidings
Seedlings must breathe without canopy foliage
While shadow shelters depth of life within the sea

So
Child
Don't fear the silence
Feel alive as you hear your heart beating
So
Child
Don't shun your doubts, emptiness, uncertainty
You must have the wavering void of darkness
To hold a dream
That is not devoid of
Wonder
Unwavering indefatigable wonder

Traversing ceaselessly
Through
The dawn of silence and dusk of uncertainty
Unto the undying fields of ancient wisdom
I am the dreamer who reaps eternity

The Beginning and the End

(Introduction and Conclusion):


The withering maples, the fallen skylark
The plagued leaves, the forsaken bees
Are warning us that we are not only
Losing our depth, but also our earth
The sun, and our ways
When love is great, greater than the sea
We fear it the most, afraid to be lost in the waves

It shall not fade away, the eternity will always stay
Yet, Yet we build our haven with materialistic bricks
To hide away from the fear of losing
And look down upon culture and souls as a foolish faith
Not realizing, all that can be weathered away
Will be weathered away, broken down, to decay
Then, swept away, by the temporal waves

And those that belong in the eternal place
And those that seek for truth within this maze
If they ever find it or are found by it
They will shine, shine under the sun of everlasting rays

If all these endless roads are only for the incomer
To prepare for the end of the road, the end of our ways
Telling them that within this cycle of brevity
The road will end just a few short steps away
Would it be more rational to not arrive, or stay
Surely, we seek truth to find guidance to the pave
And continue our lives
In that painless, lossless
Place


Verse:


When we are still combating evil
With our guns and metals of empathy
Another far more vicious and shapeless foe
Has suddenly and quietly sneaked up behind us  
So that on our search for the truth
We are being suffocated by the abundance

It seems like we are being surrounded
By two different but equally hideous enemies
But are we the only innocent ones?
Are we innocent?
The sky is veiled by the autumn shade of change
Perhaps, we couldn’t see clearly who’s who
Behind the mask of foliage
Couldn’t see what is truly happening
To this new age

Pre-Chorus:

The red leaves gently fall
Covering their visages
Till we are deluded by the illusion
A fool with dusty tattered cloaks, scythe in hand
A knight shimmering like gold, staff in command
But what hides behind this nature’s disguise
Which of them is our friend which is the foe
Is one warm in clothes but cold in his soul?
The humble one cherishes his blades for harvesting
The boastful crushes with his plenty, baton of pain

Bridge:

All hungry and thirsty souls
All bodies filled with emptiness
Just want to be filled, filled with whatever will stay
And stay, peaceful without the prospect of abandonment and fading away

Chorus:

We wish, we pray, we
Won’t be washed away
Be forgotten, perish away
Why climb for the summit
If we must fall to a nameless grace?
Why can’t we just stay unborn?
If we can’t bear life’s lightness or weight?
Perhaps, I’ll never understand my place
But within the pondering and hopelessness

I woke up
And realize that truly:
Only Love transcends time and space
The embrace between two condensed hearts
Of pure longing could exert
The gravity
And gravitational time dilation
Of such self-forgetful density
That would wrap entire fabrics of reality
Around us, immersing us, with brief
Merciful revelations and trials
Of the unfathomable
Eternity

Verse:

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
Should not have been for us so near and dire
Only a couple of generations, only a couple of decades
We are already lost between unrest and the barren
The wavelength of boom and bust becoming exponentially shorter
So that before a man has fully dug himself out of the mud
He is already returning to ashes and dust

Within the ocean of impermanence and uncertainty
We quickly raise the good lumber
And then just as efficiently push it back down
Till we are more like volcanic rocks
With so many holes floating, to ask to be filled
And when fulfilled, drown as we fill, purposeless
And empty  

Pre-Chorus

Hungry or at peace is sometimes the same
We are equally empty and anxious
We aren’t necessarily searching for more
Like Milan Kundera said,
What we can bear the least is
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being”

The children joyously rush towards the summit
And pushes down the monolith that crushed them
Without realizing an invisible rope connects all
So that all who wishes to reach the top
Must also fall through and brace the ground

Bridge:

All hungry and thirsty souls
All bodies filled with emptiness
Just want to be filled, filled with whatever will stay
And stay, peaceful without the prospect of abandonment and fading away

Chorus:

We wish, we pray, we
Won’t be washed away
Be forgotten, perish away
Why climb for the summit
If we must fall to a nameless grace?
Why can’t we just stay unborn?
If we can’t bear life’s lightness or weight?
Perhaps, I’ll never understand my place
But within the pondering and hopelessness
I woke up
And realize that truly:
Only Love transcends time and space
The embrace between two condensed hearts
Of pure longing could exert
The gravity
And gravitational time dilation
Of such self-forgetful density
That would wrap entire fabrics of reality
Around us, immersing us, with brief
Merciful revelations and trials
Of the unfathomable
Eternity

The Beginning and the End
(Introduction and Conclusion)

The withering maples, the fallen skylark
The plagued leaves, the forsaken bees
Are warning us that we are not only
Losing our depth, but also our earth
The sun, and our ways
When love is great, greater than the sea
We fear it the most, afraid to be lost in the waves

It shall not fade away, the eternity will always stay
Yet, Yet we build our haven with materialistic bricks
To hide away from the fear of losing
And look down upon culture and souls as a foolish faith
Not realizing, all that can be weathered away
Will be weathered away, broken down, to decay
Then, swept away, by the temporal waves

And those that belong in the eternal place
And those that seek for truth within this maze
If they ever find it or are found by it
They will shine, shine under the sun of everlasting rays