In the gas stove, a fire is burning.
Oolong tea, wind, a wispy evening moon.

—— That's it. —— How things stand in this world.
The kind of earnestness they want is ceremonial attire.
Artifice over what's natural.
Standing at full attention.
They've given up souls in the toss-up of this world.
Once the naked soul they knew, warm or cold ——
But you see this, and it's nothing to wonder at.
That's how things stand in this world.
All embrace many a mundane feeling,
in a gathering of dreadful, cold-hearted, myopic men.
And so, those who think to live life true
—— are always, still, and forever more ——
considered un-genuine, ironically.
And be persecuted, like you.
Those cowards,
lacking a shred of sincerity.
would exclaim in shock at the sight of us,
and hurl all sorts of insults. To bide their time.
Sincerity-lackers fiddle with the corpus delecti of the act,
and leave us actors in the act by the wayside.
It's the world that's the one that deserves scorn,
and the dwarves in the whirl of it ought be ashamed.
We must carry out the deed to be done,
take the road to be taken,
respecting only rules of our own,
and attain oneness with nature, stay or go, sit or stand.
The power of the highest good lies in self-belief.
Let's not be startled by our ugly-as-toad brethren.
But find them visions of grotesque beauty.
Let them savor our love for them.
We must defeat the calamity.
And live life natural and free.
Like the blowing wind, the fleeting cloud, never to betray.
Destingy and inner need and the dictates of reason.
Nature is wise.
Nature is attentive to detail.
So quit troubling over the others, those misfits,
Come, how about a meager meal in Ginza, as usual?