My youth an unripe plum. Your teeth have left their marks on it. The tooth marks still vibrate. I remember always, remember always. Since I learned how to love you, the door of my soul.has been left wide open to the winds of the four directions.
Reality calls for change.
The fruit of awareness is already ripe, and the door can never be closed again. Fire consumes this century, and mountains and forests bear its mark. The wind howls across my ears, while the whole sky skakes violently in the snowstorm. When Thich Nhat Hanh was young, he wrote this poem during times of war. He was embroiled in an era of mass destruction and suffering during the Vietnam War in particular.