-The soft sweeping breeze of spring
turns violent in the embrace of storms
water breaks free of restraints, colliding
against us, this earth, in the way tears fall
summer scorches through, only after
we have suffered the inundations
after the floods have carried us off
when we’ve no footing left, or place
everything dries and becomes parched
in the gaze of the sun’s face, indifferent
like the fallen tears, long since dried,
no longer recalled or mourned or felt
time is like this, we are like this, breath
and breeze collide and cease, like this
oceans, restless in their tossing, crashing
then calming, too, are like this
the soul, the earth, the wind, the bodies
submerged in themselves are all violent
but violence must always breathe in peace,
or violence destroys itself and nothing is left;
there is the storm, there is the silence after,
there is the sun and there is its absence.