You can never step in the same water twice,
because it is irrepressible and adapts to change.
Like flowing water, life is perpetual movement,
so you must be formless and resilient.

Because it is irrepressible and adapts to change,
water can crash as well as flow.
So you must be formless and resilient,
and burst forth into the world.

Water can crash as well as flow,
being swift and sharp, like a tiger.
And burst forth into the world,
pointed, as to be precise.

Being swift and sharp, like a tiger,
you can never step in the same water twice.
Pointed, as to be precise,
like flowing water. Life is perpetual movement.

Photo by John Chrom.

A pantoum is a Malaysian verse form adapted by French poets and occasionally imitated in English. It comprises a series of quatrains, with the second and fourth lines of each quatrain repeated as the first and third lines of the next. The second and fourth lines of the final stanza repeat the first and third lines of the first stanza.