taimatsu no monogatari

I am posting this poem (as per meme) not because it's my absolute favourite poem ever, or because I think it's particularly marvellous in some other way, but because I read it when I was little in a book I think I no longer have. I loved it then and have remembered it ever since - I know I wanted to put it to music - and I want to have a note of it on LJ in case I lose track of it again.

The Rainflower

Deep in the forest where light never falls
There's a place that no one else knows,
A deep marshy hollow beside a grey lake
And that's where the rainflower grows.

The one silver rainflower that's left in the world,
Alone in the mist and the damp,
Lifts up its bright head from a cluster of leaves
And shines through the gloom like a lamp.

Far from the footpaths and far from the roads
In a silence where no birds call,
It blooms like a secret, a star in the dark,
The last silver rainflower of all.

So keep close behind me and follow me down,
I'll take you where no one else goes,
And there in the hollow beside the grey lake,
We'll stand where the last rainflower grows.

Richard Edwards

Pain - has an Element of Blank -
It cannot recollect
When it begun - or if there were
A time when it was not -

It has no Future - but itself -
Its Infinite contain
Its Past - enlightened to perceive
New Periods - of Pain.