The endless depth of the waking sky
flattens when branches traverse it in black.
You can switch from the boundless depth
to delineated elegance
and back.
From beauty to beauty.
The morning world is open
and you can enter it.
And you can go out
and give presents to others
and receive gifts
and be happy.
Courage is always beautiful
and courage in the face of overwhelming odds – doubly so.
That is why there is such an acute, poignant beauty in realism.
Seeing things as they are
and nevertheless
making choices based on who you want to be –
what can be more brave,
more beautiful,
more pointless?
Little yellow flowers grow on the crumbling bricks of a ruined building.
They dance in the warm spring air, they bring life to stillness and desolation.
Their faint smell mixes with the sour odour of decay and makes it complex:
no longer one note of sadness, but a palette to chose from.
They bring joy to my eyes.
In time, my eyes will turn to dust and – who knows – may be made into bricks
for little yellow flowers to grow on.
I would be glad to repay the favour.
I like wear and tear.
Things are new and clean in the same way, but old and dirty differently.
And so are people.
In the age of mass production, wear and tear help to save us from boredom.
Cherry blossoms – a staple of poetry,
they appear so briefly in such profusion…
What is the fascination?
Is it our slightly guilty,
maintenance-free
enjoyment
of the beauty of evanescence?
