First I have to tell you a small story.

Mulla Nasruddin had gone fishing…His wife had been insisting continuously, “Some day you take me with you.” He said, “I will not have time for you. I will be so concentrated on fishing, and you don’t know how to keep your mouth shut.”

But she promised that she would not speak, so he took the wife. Strangely enough he found a place in the river where there were so many fish…he had never been so fortunate! Obviously it was the fortune of the wife. He thanked her. He said, “Strange! I have been searching and searching – a few fish here and there. But this place is full of all kinds of fish and so easily catchable! I should mark this place so I don’t forget; otherwise how to find this place again?”

So he took a piece of chalk – he was a schoolmaster – and made a cross on the side of the boat to remember, that “this is the place where there are so many fish.” But marking on the boat won’t help in any way.

Gido says: Toward dawn – always remember, these poems are visualized.

Toward dawn,
the same bright stars return,
night after night
on the mountain ranges.
Winter snows appear every year.
Silly to imagine from these things
that Gautama is in any
particular place –
like carving nicks on the side
of a boat to mark its place
in the river!

Toward dawn,

…as the morning sun is rising,

the same bright stars return,
night after night
on the mountain ranges.
Winter snows appear every year.
Silly to imagine from these things
that Gautama is in any
particular place…

He is saying that seeing all this change, it is almost silly to think that the Buddha is in any particular place.

…like carving nicks on the side
of a boat to mark its place
in the river!

All your marks are on the boat. And they don’t in any way help you to find the place in the river, because in the river you cannot make a mark. The moment you make it, it disappears.