Smokescreen

00:00.97]Passage 10.Rush

00:04.04]Swallows may have gone,but there is a time of return;

00:10.27]willow trees may have died back,but there is a time of regreening;

00:15.30]peach blossoms may have fallen,but they will bloom again.

00:19.79]Now,you the wise,tell me,why should our days leave us,never to return?

00:27.23]If they had been stolen by someone,who could it be?

00:31.39]Where could he hide them?

00:33.46]If they had made the escape themselves,then where could they stay at the moment?

00:39.70]I don ’t know how many days I have been given to spend,

00:44.52]but I do feel my hands are getting empty.

00:47.91]Taking stock silently,I find that more than eight thousand days have already slid away from me.

00:55.67]Like a drop of water from the point of a needle disappearing into the ocean,

01:02.02]my days are dripping into the stream of time,soundless,traceless.

01:08.15]Already sweat is starting on my forehead,and tears welling up in my eyes.

01:14.49]Those that have gone have gone for good,those to come keep coming;

01:20.73]yet in between,how fast is the shift,in such a rush?

01:26.42]When I get up in the morning,

01:28.83]the slanting sun marks its presence in my small room in two or three oblongs.

01:35.72]The sun has feet,look,he is treading on,lightly and furtively;

01:42.07]and I am caught,blankly,in his revolution.

01:45.67]Thus —the day flows away through the sink when I wash my hands,

01:51.59]wears off in the bowl when I eat my meal,

01:54.87]and passes away before my day-dreaming gaze as reflect in silence.

02:01.21]I can feel his haste now,so I reach out my hands to hold him back,

02:07.34]but he keeps flowing past my withholding hands.

02:11.17]In the evening,as I lie in bed,he strides over my body,glides past my feet,in his agile way.

02:20.03]The moment I open my eyes and meet the sun again,one whole day has gone.

02:27.58]I bury my face in my hands and heave a sigh.

02:32.17]But the new day begins to flash past in the sigh.

02:37.21]What can I do,in this bustling world,with my days flying in their escape?

02:43.77]Nothing but to hesitate,to rush.

02:47.49]What have I been doing in that eight-thousand-day rush,apart from hesitating?

02:53.73]Those bygone days have been dispersed as smoke by a light wind,

02:59.09]or evaporated as mist by the morning sun.

03:02.60]What traces have I left behind me?

03:06.10]Have I ever left behind any gossamer traces at all?

03:10.25]I have come to the world,stark naked;

03:13.97]am I to go back,in a blink,in the same stark nakedness?

03:19.11]It is not fair though:

03:21.20]why should I have made such a trip for nothing!

03:24.80]You the wise,tell me,

03:26.77]why should our days leave us,never to return?