Discoveries are made every day.
In some, we reinvent ourselves.
We see the sunlit mornings of Beijing,
and in others —
the hush of the dead,
the graveyards of things and their objects
that belong to no one anymore.
To whom do they belong, then?
Who owns what no longer has an owner?
I discovered I had aged
the day I stopped imagining clouds
as battle cruisers
carrying heroes from distant galaxies
coming to Earth
to fight their ancient foes
before my wide, believing eyes.
Now I just see clouds.
They haven’t lost their beauty —
it’s not mine to take or grant —
but I only see the passing of life,
the wind that pushes them forward,
and nothing more.
They are that, and nothing more.
And what remains,
if it is just that and nothing more?
The world is beautiful,
but I have grown old.
And sometimes, it unsettles me
that the world won’t die with me.
That I’m far more temporary.
And sometimes
I wonder if the world, too,
feels uncertain
in the face of the universe.
And perhaps the universe itself
feels small
before the many others.
Perhaps it fears death,
the end of all things.
Or perhaps nothing ends,
perhaps all is beginning again,
and I should seek
my own beginning, too?
But today I am too old.
Clouds are just clouds.
Love is no longer love,
just psycho-chemical reactions.
The birds in the sky go on strutting.
The wind keeps pushing them.
And life continues.
And the universes die
inside each one of us.
– Painting: Credits to and rights from Kevin Kia