I am like one of those Japanese paintings
of a mountain, and a solitary man
walking, propped upon a little stick.
All around him are dangerous canyons,
terrible waterfalls, unstable passages.
Maybe there is even a little bridge
of bamboo and reeds, just strong enough
to carry him across the river.
But to where? He is far from home
and eats only at the tables of strangers.
He sleeps in the woods, unafraid of tigers,
a friend to monkeys and snakes alike.
Yes, I am like one of those paintings
one finds in the museum, in a room
with other paintings, each one like the next.
People stop to look at them, then move on
not noticing the man on the mountain
whose very life is in mortal danger
but only the prettiness of the trees
whose twisted roots weaken the traveler.
                        

We trace the poet through his poems
as a hunter tracks his prey
through footprints in the snow.
We stumble through ravines
thick with branches, and with difficulty
climb the steep hillsides
neglected and overgrown.
The poet moves like a tiger;
these are his woods, his hills.
Our compass is useless.
Exhausted, we return from the hunt
with fables of adventure
of how we almost captured
that prey of preys, the poet.