Has my spirit gone cold,
Has the fire ceased burning;
I drift through the world
Seeking peace with ambition.
Subdued in the green,
Pines around me —
Let your spirit rest,
Give this story time.

A warm rain falls in Fukuoka.
It drips on the lilies and reeds;
I’ve felt like this for a while,
I think I fear stagnation.
Riding city to city
To help me make sense of the song in my heart.

At a hostel, on a whiteboard, a traveler wrote:
Listen to the silence — maybe then
You’ll start to understand Japan.
There’s nothing but the sound of the wind.
A language unspoken, a river of feeling,
Maybe time will attune me to hearing.

I feel like I’m older
There are things I should know.
The darkness of my shadow has deepened;
’Cause the sun that I face
Shines brighter.
My shadow feels the warm rain, too; the darkness
Spreads and fades.

If I stop taking steps, my story will cease
I’ll succumb to a life I know’s not made
For me.
That unknown language speaks to me
A notion I cling to,
My heart tells me go
So I listen and wander
Feels like all that I know,
A lesson is left, the notion remains,
Like the dirt on my shoes, which I track on the train.

Each step is a word that comprises a story,
Each soul is a page unwritten —
I don’t know the words I’m writing.
I’ve lost my sense of self.
As I travel, my thumbs split the pages.
The book falls open to a random page,
A dimly lit store,
The window of your story.

Reflections on the water
Shimmer as you scribble —
Blowing on a flower, sitting in the grass.
Our adventures play out.
Do they see me peer within,
Living in our words
Our lives comprise a book;
I wander an island that’s
Reached by a bridge
White, an arched silhouette —
You wait on the train and
Fill your page with the sight of the
Mountain at dusk —
The song in your ears gives
Meaning to the rain, the
Song in my heart gives beauty to the pain.

Maybe life’s not a question to answer.
Maybe it’s the words in the rain or the rustle of the pines
Which tells me to wait and see —
Let your path remain a profound mystery.

My brother and I head to Nagasaki
Where rain still clouds the windows.
The water moves,
The trees remain breathing
My heart wants a truce —
But the song won’t stop;

I look to the night,
The moon, she smiles;
Writing her own ancient story.

Your page is full of wonder, alone under the stars;
The light of the moon fills the cracks of the road,
I follow the cracks ’cause
I don’t know
Where to go,
I want to make magic like
The flower that grows
Giving color to the world
Asking for nothing in return,
The love in my heart hasn’t faded;
It’s looking for
Somewhere to go.

The pen stops moving
You’re no longer there;
Is that this river of feeling
I can’t understand?