No One Is Yours

So — if your household breaks up over an affair,your job over a bribe,if your standing in society turns to dirt over drink,if want drives your people away one by one,

your state lying on the chest of the anti-thesis —

then you are free. Even so, you are a lover.If the day runs out from cloud to cloud,if you are tired from running after light,if love's moments go by in one sulk after another,then on a day of rain you are alone even in desire.

If your child moves away from you over the affair,think: in this world I am unbound.Think: really, I am a bird.Birds owe their young nothing once the young can fly.

Unknown, alone,you too are a great star, drunk on the intoxication of death.

If for no reason the sea comes and swallows the river,know that everyone has the right to eat,and the right to die as much as to live.

So — say that after death you go and findno one sitting there for you.Then it is time to kiss the cheek of emptiness.The empty is the inevitable grace of life.

The unethical longing that rises out of the constitution of emptinessand the law of birds — that is the real you.

The state is no one of yours.The state is no one of yours.No one is anyone of yours.You are nature's debt, in the parable of the one.