John Lee Hooker
The Lustre of the flowers Has faded and passed,
While on idle things
I have spent my body
In the world's long rains.
Was it that I went to sleep
Thinking of him,
That he came in my dreams?
I should not have awakened.
How helpless my heart
Were the stream to tempt,
My body, like a reed
Severed at the roots,
Would drift along, I think.
When my love becomes
All powerful,
I turn inside out
My garments of the night
Night dark as leopard-flowers
Ono Komachi
