Fleeting Feelings

  Footprints Whenever I look at the sea, a shiver runs through me, a trace of envy rises watching the swelling, spreading waves. The sea scatters its colors along the shore— waves heavy with shells arrive in anger, yet squander their riches on a single pearl or two. One after another, countless, they reach the shore and disappear again. I watch flocks of circling birds— diving at the sight of the waves, catching fish, then rising back into air. Shell or pearl— both are left behind on the sand. I have heard the sea shelters an entirely different world within itself. The water may be salty, yet it is not separate from my world— we are not apart from one another. Moving with the waves, along the edge of the shore, over this sand, I keep walking. I watch my footprints fade beneath the waves— sometimes erased in anger, sometimes as if laughing. -----------------

      Where the Path Ends   The mountains stood at a distance. Something in me answered. The body moved before the will named it. A low, nameless insistence took hold of the heart. The paths refused coherence. Mud yielded, stone resisted. Thorns tore, without intention. Still the summit returned again and again to the mind’s eye. I walked. I invented passage. Ignorant of what waited low in the grass, coiled, watching. The ascent narrowed. No path now. What was once marvellous from afar collapsed into mass, stone against stone, tree against tree. Water spoke without appearing. Beasts cried inside birdsong. Wind threaded all sounds into one unease. I stopped. Not to rest, but to persuade myself. Why fear what once seemed whole? My shadow lengthened beyond me. Time tilted. Evening gathered its weight. Step. Pause. Breath held, then released. The silence did not console. It instructed. A small voice, without sound, said: further. The image I carried began to fail. A...