Classic Poem

This little clay lamp
is stained all over black,
in the open world naive and good,
in silence bearing the flame
in which it has its pride.
Just pain is its adornment,
pain is its worldly joy.
Just to burn is its life,
heat its penance.

Flame burning and gathering
says life is a little clay cup,
life is pain,
to burn—the essence of awareness,
the idea—a thread of atoms and ashes,
blood itself the fuel.

For whom are you blazing, flame?
who garners the substance,
this bird's beak pain,
tender moment of the pen?

Last night it rained
and the rain said,
the fire garlands the intellect,
some unknown universal poet
writes on the page
the freshness of the age.

Like you the lamp is burning.
My tavern is serenity,
the flame my girl who brings the wine;
As with a beak of bitter fate
it writes the poem,
the garland for the heart.

Only flame, only flame
must be the substance