..فراشة ترفرف فوق فراشنا

Billy Collins
Japan
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Today I pass the time
readinga favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
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It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
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I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it
.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
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I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
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And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
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It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it,
I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
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When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
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When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
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And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
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and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed