or,

The meadow prefers no trespassers

It is not for nothing that I seek payment
for you to come near my soft body.
It is a design to hold you off, just so,
make you think twice, reflect on
whether this is truly necessary.
In the end, you may offer payment,
but I shall refuse it. There —
that is my gate. The concession is closed.

Yet, today, you reverse this.
You ask me for payment,
not for me to approach you,
but for you to approach me again,
as if your hands are not the menace
they would be the other way.
All narrative on top of action, you say,
as if it is your meaning and not the fact.

But hold, I choose neither to pay nor be paid.
I save nature to take its course,
for the meadow to lie fallow, for tired hemlock

to die and resprout after long winter,
for lazy oak to crowd out blackberries,
for cicadas to wake the moon, for wild fire,
for rain storm, for endless sun,
for all these and for all else
without your interferences,
without your gaping desires.

—–
From Hafiz, A Pie Where You Live (trans. Daniel Ladinsky)