The Tree on the Hill

For a long, long time this tree has grown on an arid hill without water,
its branches spread wide like a bird absorbed in flight.
The high sun from its hot, blazing dais dazzles it blind,
yet all the life juices of the world are surging inside it.

The rustling of its branches is heard in the summer,
and even in the winter, when it is snowing,
and the world both notices and takes no notice.

Wild gusts of wind besiege it, and dark ghosts, too,
the hard, cracked soil turns its bright gaze dim,
droughts like snake pits suck at its earth-bound roots,
but still it is proudly green and grows, it grows and is green.

My love, I met you on this hill like a traveler who rises at dawn.
I gave you all that I could, but all of it was barrenness.
Beneath this tree we loved each other and grew older—drought to us was coolness—
and now we are leaving, but the tree endures and remains.

May God grant me one last wish
at this great parting of ways—
that we find each other again and join as one with the core
of this tree that grows on an arid hill high into the air.