Nothing in the world is softer
or weaker than water.*

Water is soft,
stones are hard.
Which would
you rather be?

When boulders
are worn beyond pebbles
only water remains whole.

Fill a bowl with water
until it brims and overflows
dripping on what's below.

Soft drops rain down.

Each drop of rain,
inexorably falling,
wears away the boulder
until only pebbles remain.

Each teardrop of time,
inevitably passing,
wears our lives away
until only memories remain.

The pebbles of life
begin as boulders
worn by time and tears
to their own perfection.

Paradox of life:
we must be worn away
to become whole.

When boulders
are worn to pebbles,
and pebbles to dust,
only water remains.

Time and teardrops
fill a pond
ruled by stillness.

Be still.

Know that enough's
enough to know;
that to live
until you die
is long enough.

Be the teardrops
not the boulder.

350 million
petulant toddlers
throwing tantrums
in the dark.

For the longest time,
it was all about the future;
then, there came that
strange, unexpected
and terrible moment
when the past began
to take control.
Oh that tragic feeling:
nowhere to go.
Everything is ending
and nothing is left
to begin.
Sterile loneliness
of the eternal now.
Dawns like snowfields
of the Gulag.
Days of vapis vacuum
Nights tucked into
an empty bed.
Where does hope fly
when you need it
the most?
How do you soldier on
without it?
Time, which never lies,
will tell.

Disappointments and delusions
make time scream by so fast
our pasts, so full of freedom,
seem to have belonged to others.
If only time's roaring train
could be slowed a bit,
we might enjoy our complete lives
the way lovers enjoy every inch
of each other's bodies.

ἐγγὺς μὲν ἡ σὴ περὶ πάντων λήθη· ἐγγὺς δὲ ἡ πάντων περὶ σοῦ λήθη.

How many streets,
how many times,
has he strolled
in this irrelevant
town?

Fifty years
The perambulating
flaneur.*

Change must be
but often arrives
glacially.

Crows on wires.
Nonchalant bunnies.
Indifferent children.

These ancestors
of that first ramble
take no notice
of the white haired man
with a cane.

The scenery never
comments on the drama.

Walking old streets
where many lives
have lived and vanished

brings neither sadness
nor nostalgia,

only the reminder
of time's inevitable,
ineluctable vortex.

Sometimes
all you can do
with a broken heart
is close it up
for repairs
hoping to
to reopen it
later, shinier.

Most folks
live in small yards,
their vision
curtailed by walls;
eventually the walls
become reality.

This is also
known as death.