You ask why I make my home in the mountain forest, And I smile, and am silent, And even my soul remains quiet: It lives in the other world Which no one owns. The peach trees blossom. The water flows.
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One leaf left on a branch
and not a sound of sadness
or despair. One leaf left
on a branch and no unhappiness.
One leaf left all by itself
in the air and it does not speak
of loneliness or death.
One leaf and it spends itself
in swaying mildly in the breeze.