The Poet's Testament by Angkhan Kalayanaphong

The Poet's Testament by Angkhan Kalayanaphong

I wrap the sky around myself

to keep away the cold

and eat starlight late at night

to take the place of rice.

Dewdrops scatter below the sky

for me to find and drink,

and out my poems flow

to greet the morn, to last the age. 

My heart, sacrificed to its grave,

gains unworldly powers;

the spirit flies to lands of dreams

the far side of the sky.

It seeks divinity in Heaven

and brings it back to earth

to soothe the sand and grass,

bringing happiness, bringing peace. 

My purpose in composing poems

is to salvage the soul.

now lying upon the swift, bold

currents and waves of time.

Although this life, which is not long,

gets all used up so soon,

the heart's proclamations,

sparkling and divine, shall last. 

Let your body burn away

in its crematorium—

poems made with strength and sweetness

cannot be burnt away.

Whichever world the soul's reborn in,

there will be floods

of precious holy rainbows,

flashing crystal and sparkling gems. 

Stillness is spirited into joy

by the written word,

as Heaven's precious heavy rain

extinguishes the heat.

The heart is swiftly blown away

to dream in other lands.

This life smells sweet. The next

will have reflections of its sweetness. 

I'm willing to renounce my life

and to throw it away,

I only want valuable goods,

the twinkling and the new.

Poetry surely is the most

sacred art of all,

magic as sweet bouquets are

that, taken from a precious wood,

have fallen from the sky.