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Four Couplets I.I Dear one, your voice is so cheerful and calm. I could listen for hours to your talking. That doesn�t mean that I wouldn�t heed your words, merely that I would also enjoy their sound. I would appreciate their sonic quality as well as their semantic meaning. I mean, if you were singing in an Italian opera, I wouldn�t mind that I couldn�t understand the words. I.II Dear one, the way you use words is so fascinating, so refreshing, as if you were the one who invented the concept of language, and you do whatever you want with it, and it doesn�t make it harder for me to understand, on the contrary, I can understand you more clearly with your imaginary words, than if you did not use them. II.I The yellow sun shines through my windowpanes and illuminates the frame around a photograph, and then, some minutes later, changes angles and shines upon the face that�s in the photograph. I don�t look at your picture very often now that you have moved back into town. There is no need, since I can look at you in reality whenever I want. II.II There are hundreds of thousands of kinds of flowering plants but only a small fraction of that number in any arboretum. A florist�s shop provides a smaller, yet different, selection. After I went to the arboretum with you I realized something: that Catalpa speciosa is no longer my favorite flower now that I have seen the roses blooming on your cheeks. III.I It was very bucolic of you to invite me here to dine with you in the shade of riparian trees. This is the nineteenth time that I�ve come to your house. Would you like to eat dinner at my house sometime? Perhaps if I rearrange my environment you would want to stay permanently? I pull the poison ivy off my wall and the caustic resin runs down my hands. III.II It was very lysergic of you to compare my voice to the sound of a prophet shouting from a mountaintop. I don�t think that I could shout loud enough for my voice to be heard in the valley below. And I don�t think that I would have anything worth saying in such a grand manner. But maybe, if you were there to inspire me, I would try to do it. IV.I Your mind turns slowly. I perceive that you are pondering the future. It is strange, that such a small question could elicit such deep contemplation. Do not rush yourself in an effort to answer me quickly. A decision like this should not be made lightly. Events in the future can not be the same As if I had not asked the question of you. IV.II My mind turns rapidly When I ponder the glorious future. From now on, the present will get better and better, and continuously better. I never would have imagined that such a simple answer to such a very simple question could produce so much happiness inside of me. Back |