Day's End

At the end of the day, all I want is laughter.  All I am looking for, ultimately, is laughter and music.  Even I knew that, but I dare not admit it to anybody, lest I be thought of as decadent.

However, I did say, "At the end of the day."  Before the day's end, there will be toil, unhappiness, and discomfort--plenty of them.

Because laughter, once it has burst open and is in the air as vibration, is universal, like music....  Even plants, especially plants, will feel it, and rocks and water, too.

Fear

Dearie and I were talking, and Dearie said: "Is it solitude, or just an overwhelming sense of fear?  Solitude is beautiful, but fear is uncalled for!  Fear is still different from caution, and helplessness a much more benign sensation than fear.  When do you experience fear?  I, for one, experience it when I know for certain that the person in front of me, whom I believe to have known very well, begins to act unpredictably.  It is, most likely, a sign of my own weakness.  After all, I am so weak, and I cannot be proud of that.  And yet, sudden bursts of fear are not just about my own weakness.  They also embody what I might call the world's total potential for misunderstanding --and alienation.  It's in the air, and is also in my head - oh yes, I can feel it - and it frightens me so much that I begin to feel as though everything was a flat pie."  I asked Dearie if she meant a "lie," not "pie."  She was sobbing so hard now that she did not respond, yes or no.

In the Night

In the likeness of a quiet mirror,

I sing

Silent songs that are but flashes of light

In the darkness of a moonless night,

I travel

Across plains lit up by the still, crystal air

Dare You, Dare Me

O masters of the universe,

Who complain, very kindly, of Tapan's cultural insularity

Have you ever thought that the very insularity of

Your own mind

Is also partly to blame?

O global citizens,

How willing are you

To listen to what the insular culture is truly saying

And to listen

To what your own glob-insular heart tells you now?

Summer

The sounds of cicadas do not leave my ears

I must tire myself tirelessly

To forget

But the sounds of cicadas cannot, and do not, leave my ears

A Didactic Moment

What is self-confidence?  Or just confidence?

Humility ought to serve as the root;

Gratitude as the leaves;

But in the end, what makes the clouds billow and the rain splatter

Is mirth: o mirth, the Muse of all things!