Distant Holy Man

Today, this one day,

on this one day called today      

I saw the whole of the sun rise

and saw it all set

Nothing more to see—

a swarm of gnats laying eggs, dying

I am still alive,

long past my time to die,

But consider—today, I don’t feel

as if I’ve lived even this single day

He may live a thousand years,

but the holy man

Is but a distant cloud of gnats

Translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl
From For Nirvana: 108 Zen Sijo Poems.
Translation copyright © 2016 Heinz Insu Fenkl.
Reprinted with the permission of Columbia University Press, New York.