Purification

I have wandered off far.
"It is only journeyings,
It is only travels."

I have strayed. What do you demand?
"What do you demand?"
Purification.

"What is purification?"

The water washes over the skin.
"You require a vessel."
The skin has been prepared with soap.
"Then where will you find the formula?"
The water returns and carries things away.

What is the water?
"The water is the light."
What is the vessel? -- Is it the body?
"But light will not come to the body."
Light comes to the eyes.

Then let the light enter,
Let it enter. The eyes are the vessel,
The water is the light.

And what is the detergent? With what
Will the light bind? Soap
Mediates the water and the dirt,
Carries the dirt into the water
And out through the water. The opposite of light
Is darkness, just as earth
Opposes water. What will stand
Between the darkness and the light
To reconcile them, bind them, let them
Fall away?