Sea-
So near,untouched
Yet I feel
Your cold.

Your jagged surface,
A blackened sapphire-blue.
Snow peaks drift like islands
in your remote expanse.

Sea,I am not your lover.
But I gaze at you
With the same eyes.

The glass and steel high-rises
I always harbor hostility.
They stand like soldiers ranked before a city gate,
like guns aimed at strangers,
asserting their strength.

To shade the high-rises—there must be trees.
lush trees,
ancient trees—like bouquets
rest in tank barrels.
They cannot withstand the iron cold,
cannot withstand the searing burn,
but they can loosen,
the guard I keep within.

When joy and peace are mine,
I call death an end-
the close of happy things.
But when my body writhes in pain,
I see in death
suffering taken to its utmost.

The former bears the arrogance of distance,
the pride born of safety.
The latter-
pure cowardice.
Is death the final terror of humankind?

Illness must descend,
now and then-
to remind me I am small.
Identity, future, fame-forgotten.
Solely the urgency to ease the pain,
and the dread of more.

If heaven exists,
Would it be expensive?
Does it set up thresholds for entry,
symbolizing rarity?
Or is it cheap--
Like a paradise spoken of by leftists,
welcoming to anyone,
Perhaps without any price at all?
Then,as someone born in the age of capitalism,
I cannot enter heaven.

To live in Europe,in beatiful cities and villages,
Might be the finest land on Earth.
But I know it is not heaven.