Oksanen, Reijo

The Three Pilgrimages

The Climb to the Mountain

I follow a little stream
Looking for its source
Up the mountain
Choosing my way
In the shade
On the dark side
With the moon and stars
As my guides

The way is long
I hurry towads the top
Slipping in the snow
Getting stuck
I reach the peak
And look around in wonder
At the beauty of the scene
When I suddenly see
My own reflection in the spring

Was it meant this way
That I should work and suffer
This long way
Just to find out
That what I had managed
In all these years
Was to carry my self-portrait
An image of nothing
To the top

The picture of myself
Had always been
In front of my vision
Everything I thought I was
Had nothing to do with me
I see now
That I am in everything
And everything is in me

Adift Towards the Sea

I start my descent
Along the stream
Now growing to a river
In which I drift
Towards the sea
Clinging to the reflection
Of my own nothingness
I see others climbing up
Shouting: Look
There’s one who has given up

The cool water
Washes away
The dirt I gathered
On my way up
There is no pain
There is no pleasure
There is nothing I can measure

One with the Ocean

My picture buried in the sea
There is nothing left of me
There is something
I can still see
It has nothing to do with me
I am alive now
The ego is gone
In the void
Left by the ego

I am

The Call

Many years went by
When suddenly
I heard a call
The voice of a woman said

"God and me
We both need thee
And the world needs us,
Us three"

I saw her on the sunny side
Her hand pointing to the top
I run to her and we joined our hands
And follow the stream on our way up

What is left of me
Is the real me
And the world needs
All of us three