(page 95)
I was not aware of the moment
when I first crossed
the threshold of this life.
What was the power that made me
open out into this vast mystery
like a bud in the forest at midnight!
When in the morning
I looked upon the light
I felt in a moment that
I was no stranger in this world,
that the inscrutable
without name and form
had taken me in its arms
in the form of my own mother.
Even so, in death
the same unknown will appear
as ever known to me.
And because I love this life,
I know I shall love death as well.
The child cries out when
from the right breast
the mother takes it away,
in the very next moment
to find in the left one
its consolation.