The story gets its sweetness from the detail of catastrophe

Аза бойым қаза болып осыған, / Балтаң маған тиердей-ақ шошынам. |
A sparrow if it sprouts, a stick if it falls, / my whole body is tingling.

Perhaps it is now the other way around, / and I have become an almost-perfect lover, / caring little that the Gods love poets less.

The sun sieves through the canopy— / rivers are relenting. My soul seats itself // for the first time. Where it is quiet, it becomes cold. / There is nothing I must do but die— // what joy to let go of all things—what ease to give up.

‘My wishes are fulfilled with less searching. / My lover rises with a little waiting. / His fresh moustache conquers the cosmos. / Colored by evening, his mole deceives fate.’

‘I roam. Sometimes in solitude; sometimes in a crowd. But unlike a dog, I do not die a little each day, subdued to the loyalty of my master. I die all at once if it must be.’

‘The pain entered / me the way the moon / disarms the daya slick blade. / I offered myself as water, / studied its errancy. / What a good citizen, / I thought.’

‘Do you hear / the rainfall beating / on cowhide skin / father? It is the life / of autumn, / supernova / booming’

I went to see what people are really like / in a thousand human ways.

My palms cannot hold back the shifting currents. / They can slap a rhythm, hoist / a banner, hold / your face tenderly between them