ALL THINGS YOU CONTAIN...

All things you contain, more than a mortal can thole.
You are light and darkness in a double bowl.

How the one shimmers, naked and cool.
Mother-of-pearl air over water of pale opal.
Seeing, seen,
ready for day's gleam
dawns slowly open their mussel shell.

But dim and still does the other brood,
also a mussel, though deeply there, where the sea is mute.
Un-broken-up,
since creation closed
it protects the mother-sleep's secret room.

All things you are, the whole of my being's goal.
You are the day and the night in a double bowl.

       

For more information, please visit the website of David McDuff and his own pages with the translations.