HANKAI

Boat is prayer.
A newly built boat floats on the boundless sea.
The southern west winds swirl down from the heavens.

The fiber stired in the mold was I, who sway on the waves.
The image of making paper was I, who roam in the globe.
The two islands have soundly soaked into my heart.

Ancestral prayers were chanted in languages regarded as dying off.
At twilight in Hualien, I walked to the shore through the strong wind.
I gazed, but the island floating thirty miles ahead couldn't be seen.

From the Lunar New Yeah to cherry blossoms season, I rambled on southern isles.
Taking fiber from banana plants in Taiwan, blending it with that in Yonaguni, and dyeing the pulp dark with Taiwanese handmade ink, I made paper.
Separated though by the Black Current, the two islands appear to have similar elements.

No matter how winds rage, clouds flow calmly.
In the moonlight, newly built boats sail for miles and miles.
The boats - life and prayer - voyage around the vast ocean.