The Beauty of Spring Blocks My Way
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Spring comes slowly and quietly
to allow Winter to withdraw
slowly and quietly.
The color of the mountain afternoon
is tinged with nostalgia.
The terrible war flower
has left her footprints-
countless petals of separation and death
in white and violet.
Very tenderly, the wound opens itself in the depths of my heart.
Its color is the color of blood,
its nature the nature of separation.
The beauty of Spring blocks my way.
How could I find another path up the mountain?
I suffer so. My soul is frozen.
My heart vibrates like the fragile string of a lute
left out in a stormy night.
Yes, it is really there. Spring has really come.
But the mourning is heard
clearly, unmistakably,
in the wonderful sounds of the birds.
The morning mist is already born.
The breeze of Spring in its song
expresses both my love and my despair.
The cosmos is so indifferent. Why?
To the harbor, I came alone,
and now I leave alone.
There are so many paths leading to the homeland.
They all talk to me in silence. I invoke the Absolute.
Spring has come
to every corner of the ten directions.
Its, alas, is only the song
of departure.
1951. This was written less than twelve hours after I fell in love
with a nun. It happened at the Vien Giac Temple on New Year’s
Eve in the beautiful village of Cau Dat in the highlands. She was
twenty. Both of us realized that we wanted to continue being a
monk and a nun. So we decided to depart from each other. This
was not easy. I was lucky to having a loving and understanding
sangha with me at that time that made it possible. Forty-one years
later, I told this story in a twenty-one day retreat at Plum Village
in English, on the theme of Vipassana meditation in the Mahayana
tradition.
From Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh
Read more poems from Thich Nhat Hanh
Read quotations and excerpts from Thich Nhat Hanh