DIVINE SEARCH Poem by Edvard Kocbek

When my quiet thoughts reach for you, all that is sinful and alien
falls off me. The world again becomes solemn, innocent and
relaxed, like after a good deed. I leave the earth and take my
playful feet to the open sea. I start wandering away from the soil
where they sold the beautiful maiden, searching for her on the
rocking ground. I begin casting spells, singing, luring toward
myself, toying with depth jumping from wave to wave, on clouds,
through the ancient universe and mute grounds, singing the songs
of the transient, knowing all the melodies and voices, ways of
loving, ways of memories and prophecies, letting the wind rock my
scars, climbing over the fantasy, the whole world belongs to me,
only the song of the maiden eludes me, something essential is
fleeing, I listen to the falling of quarters of the moon and echoes of
hurricanes in Alaska, to the docile feeding of rustling Canadian
forests, but I cannot seize her though I sense her, I, hostage,
wanderer, wizard, and lover am seeking the maiden's song through
the terrifying nothingness, roaming like the softest breeze through
the organ's pipes, like grass through the spotty cow, or like weight
through the clutch of time, I am all covered with corals, maiden, let
nobody know where I am hiding and where I can find you, remain
the knowing darkness and the blessed pain under the waterfalls of
the river, in its clear flow from mill to mill.