But perhaps the heart
Does not want to be understood.
Your shadow falls on its pond
and the small fish hurry away.
They have their own lives,
not yours, which they love.
And if to you it is anger,
bewilderment, grief,
to them it is simply life:
their mouths open and close,
their gills, they are fed, they breathe.
The gods are not large,
outside us, they are the fish,
going on wit their own concerns."
"The Gods Are Not Large" by Jane Hirshfield, from The October Palace, New York, Harper Perennial: 1994.
Image: Katsushika Hokusai - Ebisu Catching a Goldfish, circa 1830, Museum of Asian Arts, Berlin.