The Wind In the Pines 6

6. Matsukaze ("Noh" is an ancient Japanese style of drama, broadly similar to Elizabethan tragedy. "The Wind in the Pines" is my version of a well-known Noh play.) Despite the vigil I kept, night on night ... despite my spring purification rite ... paper streamers like fronds of willow, tears soaking into my pillow, you did not come. Madness touched me. Like the spume of a wave that boils and fizzes, in my pain I raved. Love returns like the ruthless tide, like the air perspires in the hot night, and leaves beads of water on morning grass to mark its sweating. The agonies pass, but there's no forgetting. Waiting at the gazing tree, I look out on the restless sea ... is that he? Coming to me? Cut the succulent leaf of aloe vera, and it weeps clear healing tears. I am restored. Here's Yukihira. See how his ship skips as it nears! I deceive myself. Am I blind? It was the wind, teasing a pine. Exquisite, his calligraphy. He painted a poem, just for me. "Now I have gone. Left you behind. But if you pine, I'll come at a run." I am nothing now. I am a sad pine, doubled over by prevailing winds. Like salt, I dissolve in the brine. Nature's madness, love, is a storm, but it can't last. The sky grows warm with purple streaks, braided on magenta. I am held fast, because I have sinned. Where I go now, none may enter. Autumn rain will come. Mark the signs. And listen for the wind, sighing in the pines.