Leaves fall and wither,
ladybirds go to sleep,
walls crumble
and doors dissolve into the background,
like tissue paper…
there is no point in grabbing an illusion –
you will just dig your nails into the palms of your hands
until they bleed
and pain finally overcomes your desperate attempt at self-deception…
and you are left with bleeding palms –
not much one can do with wounded hands…
much better to open your hand waving good-bye.
Count them:
cigarettes, barefoot footprints in the sand, days, minutes, seconds…
counting obviates the need to experience,
what’s counted is in the past, what will come is in the future…
there is no need for the sense of loss in the present,
for it can be eternally postponed, like seeing the very last footprint…
Micro-world – so different,
where minute forces create different structures,
where water is spherical and flower petals rough and ribbed…
so strange and yet so oddly familiar, almost by touch.
Consciousness – the delusion of continuity in time and space,
the miracle of a pile of stuff becoming self-aware,
the shadowy realm on the border of semantics giving us hope.
The difference between things we do not understand and deep mysteries of the universe
is that the first exist in abundance
and the second are the product of our own woolly thinking and lack of imagination.
Show me a mystery and I will show you a poorly formulated question.
Splosh…
Terry Pratchett said that all evil begins with seeing people as things.
I can add that quite a lot of stupidity begins with seeing things as people.
We see the sky above and call it majestic.
We see the sky underfoot and call it a dirty puddle.
The picture is the same.
If you look directly at the sun, for a while things around become dull and washed out;
but gradually the shadows return and subtle shades reassert themselves
and you see the transparent lights of daffodils,
the shimmering lights of the evening mist,
the flickering lights on the hair of children, playing,
the quiet lights on the faces of a couple, facing each other silently on a hill…
So many lights, so rich, so subtle –
all reflecting the sunlight and making it so much more.
We live in the spaces defined by our cultures.
Some of us expand inherited houses to palaces,
some – narrow them to defensive forts,
which then have to be lit by funeral pyres.
