Thich Nhat Hanh

footprints-

Spring comes slowly and quietly to allow Winter to withdraw slowly and quietly. The color of the mountain afternoon is tinged with nostalgia. The terrible war flower has left her footprints- countless petals of separation and death in white and violet. Very tenderly, the wound opens itself in the depths of my heart. Its color is the color of blood, its nature the nature of separation. The beauty of Spring blocks my way. How could I find another path up the mountain? I suffer so. My soul is frozen. My heart vibrates like the fragile string of a lute left out in a stormy night. Yes, it is really there. Spring has really come. But the mourning is heard clearly, unmistakably, in the wonderful sounds of the birds. The morning mist is already born. The breeze of Spring in its song expresses both my love and my despair. The cosmos is so indifferent. Why? To the harbor, I came alone, and now I leave alone. There are so many paths leading to the homeland. They all talk to me in silence. I invoke the Absolute. Spring has come to every corner of the ten directions. Its, alas, is only the song of departure.