WHEN I BRING you coloured toys, my child, I understand why there is such a play of colours on clouds, on water, and why flowers are painted in tints-when I give coloured toys to you, my child. When I sing to make you dance, I truly know why there is music in leaves, and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart of the listening earth-when I sing to make you dance. When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands, I know why there is honey in the cup of the flower, and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice-when I bring sweet things to your greedy hands. When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling, I surely understand what pleasure streams from the sky in morning light, and what delight the summer breeze brings to my body-when I kiss you to make you smile.
THE FIRST FLUSH of dawn glistens on the dew-dripping leaves of the forest. The man who reads the sky cries: 'Friends, we have come!' They stop and look around. On both sides of the road the corn is ripe to the horizon, the glad golden answer of the earth to the morning light. The current of daily life moves slowly between the village near the hill and the one by the river bank. The potter's wheel goes round, the woodcutter brings fuel to the market, the cow-herd takes his cattle to the pasture, and the woman with the pitcher on her head walks to the well. But where is the King's castle, the mine of gold, the secret book of magic, the sage who knows love's utter wisdom? 'The stars cannot be wrong,' assures the reader of the sky. 'Their signal points to that spot.' And reverently he walks to a wayside spring from which wells up a stream of water, a liquid light, like the morning melting into a chorus of tears and laughter. Near it in a palm grove surrounded by a strange hush stands a leaf- thatched hut, at whose portal sits the poet of the unknown shore, and sings: 'Mother, open the gate!'
