Tapir
Although I am raising a tapir,
I don't know since when.
I don't know
where he came from or how I wound up in raising him;
I am raising him only because he is there by my side.
He is neither cute nor of amiable nature.
He doesn't sleep while I am sleeping and
feeds from the crumbs of my dreams that have fallen on the floor.
One day the tapir,
although fed by my dreams
he disappeared from my side.
My sleepless nights began from that day,
they really are an unbearable series of chaotic nights,
I was suffering from night after night of evil dreams.
Because of the countless wakeful nights,
I lost my sense to distinguish night from day; became
unable to tell myself as to real or unreal in the standing-still-time.
Wherefore I began to roam aimlessly
searching for myself just like a sleep-walker.
My ego, unknowingly, while I was lost from myself, left me
and stepped into a wasteland no one seems to have ever stepped in;
astoundingly, however, I found an abandoned gold mine
which swallowed heaps of gold diggers' dream, body
and soul standing before me open-mouthed.
Although a gallery was glowing with golden color
it was darker, deeper and damper then the grave.
And when I stepped in the gallery which seems
so feeble that it may collapse at any moment,
I saw my tapir gazing at me gloomy-eyed.
Whether he was sorry or delighted to see me again,
or maybe hated me for not coming earlier to find him;
I was glad, nonetheless, I saw myself reflecting in his pupils.
I felt I had unloaded all those heavy burdens I was carrying all along,
and because my mind became so at ease that I got into a deep sleep,
lay by his side and beat less my heart ceased.
Note: By old Chinese tale:: a tapir is said to eat man’s nightmares.
Copyright © Su Ben | Year Posted 2014
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