ON THE CIRCLE

I lay down on the top of the circular water tank and close my eyes.
Not the sense of being enveloped by the Universe, but of enfolding the Universe - I wonder if such an instant will come. Surely that will be the instant when I am liberated from the uncertainties and uneasiness of living and the fear of death. As I feel the soft light on my eyelids, this thought floats nebulously in my mind.

On the circle they intersect - linear time and circular time.                                                                      
On the circle they melt together - the ordinary world and the extraordinary world.

The sound of wind gently rustling the grasses. Bird song. Gunshot. Children'S wails. The sound of water drops spraying up from the water's surface. On the circle sounds exist in abundance.

Was my mother's voice just an illusion?

The evening comes. I sit up. I stand on the water tank.
In the fading light, I gaze at a circle of nothing.

by Hitoshi Fugo