We are born
We breathe
We eat
We cry
We love
We hurt
We’re hurt
We learn to speak
In ways elegant
And ignorant
We grow old
Or we don’t
But all of us
We die
We learn to speak
In ways elegant
And ignorant
We grow old
Or we don’t
But all of us
We die
In another time
When the pier was planked
And we sailors came
In another time
Oh so long ago
In a world now lost
An anachronism
A paradox
To a Westerner
Like me
Water will not run uphill
It will not run fast across a plain
It will not run at all
Where no rain falls
I love being
In the places
I might only imagine
From a sci-fi author’s words
I love to photograph them
Then tweak the image
To enhance
Their oddity
Is this the dawn of time?
Or apocalypse?
The beginning of life?
Or the end of it?
A single flower
Still held in bud
Though petals fall
Onto the pond
They tarry there
Before they sink
And come to rest
To where they’ll feed
Next season’s bloom
But I shrug
And think to myself
Life itself
Is a surprise
Which always surprises me
Over this world
Of heat and sorrow
Which takes so much
Then leaves so little