Ikigai

Song of Creation

I sang a song to the windy field,

And the windy field replied:

"The land and the crop will give their yield

And the little seed that died

Will live again when the snows are gone

And the ground is rich and black.

There is life in the dark, and the smallest heart

Will wake when the summer's back."

I sang a song to the whispering wood,

And the whispering wood replied:

"The leaf and the bud and the fruit that's good,

Though, for now have been set aside,

Will return with the rain and the birds and the sun.

Through even the stormiest night,

The wood will stand tall and weather it all

'Til the summer that comes makes it bright."

I sang a song to the leaping cascade

And the leaping cascade replied:

"I am frozen and still as the heart that's dismayed,

But come in the spring and you'll find

I will trickle, I will pour, I will leap once more

And the field and the wood will be glad

That the source of their strength and their friend from before

Has returned to give back what they had."

I sang a song to the howling mount

And the howling mount replied:

"No summer is here, for with the amount

Of snow on my towering sides

I may feel at my toes the close of the cold,

And my knees may be covered in green,

But my head's in the clouds, and the ice I behold

Is the same as I ever have seen."

I sang a song to the wide rolling sea

And the wide rolling sea replied:

"The touch of the snow cannot freeze over me,

Nor can Winter's curses abide

Save above my face in the black swirling storm,

And though I am colder than death

The ice cannot capture or still my great form,

Nor my deeps that are deeper than depth."

I sang a song to the shimmering sky

And the shimmering sky replied,

"The sun and the moon and the stars up on high

Though dying, they yet have not died.

The seasons are marked by their turn on the dome:

The Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall.

The stars that can guide any traveler home

Are here and outside of it all."

I sang a song to the universe

And the universe sang to me.

Now I have turned that song into verse,

And, writing it down, set it free.