THE CHOICE OF EXILE

      Although you are almost middle-aged

      you still want to uproot yourself

      and go far away so you can start over.

      You haven’t set out yet, uncertain

      where to put down roots.

      You often wish you could be like that artist

      who bought a little island so that

      he could live freely on his own land.

      He raised vegetables and chickens, did carpentry,

      planted bamboo and fruit trees

      all over the slope beyond his cottage.

      Every season was like spring on his island,

      where he could hear only the tides and birdsong.

      It was beautiful and quiet enough to smother him.

      Don’t forget he chose to kill himself

      and even strangled his wife,

      because he couldn’t see how to continue,

      so crushed was he by madness and fear.

      From the very beginning he should have known

      that if he chose exile he would have no land of his own

      — the desire to depart

      would rise in him again and again —

      he could find no home other than the road.

      Don’t dream of taking root somewhere else.

      Once you start out, you must live like a boat,

      accepting a wandering fate

      drifting from port to port, to port . . .