Now my train is passing a stream
and I see a boat – in it the boatman sits –
stooped forward like a peasant’s sickle –
a brooding Siddhartha –
serene guardian of the waterway.
His naked torso confesses he is impoverished –
do the frolic of the seasons –
the sky with its myriad faces and
the moon in all its moods
fill his belly –
I wonder.
He must have a meagre hut on the bank –
has he then made his home in the watery expanse?
And as my train passes by his kingdom –
I wonder if he weighs his bare bones
against the gold and silver of the water.
Do the storm winds that treacherously
blow the flying fish off course –
change the course of his destiny –
I wonder.
The boatman – with many faces and eyes –
with neither name nor voice –
sits passive in his boat –
captive of the waterway –
and all the years flow over him.
