Process of Creation

It’s a metamorphosis, it’s a sapling with two hundred years to grow, it’s a dimming sunset fading to night, waiting for dawn once more. Something stirs, something grows; I’ve always known that beneath the earth, beneath the trees, beneath the pillows and our dreams, there is something on the cusp of being. Sometimes it wakes me in the night, sometimes it soothes me in my sleep; something moves. I feel it in the tips of my fingers after certain days of endless work, when something flickers, comes to life. I feel it caress my hair like sunlight used to do when I was little—and the world grows still. So often humans lead their lives and cease to create. Then indeed life is but a span of days until we die. And it isn’t one’s fault, no, it isn’t at all, just a pity, a true pity that sometimes brings tears to my eyes.

Breakfast in London

Somewhere in the distance, St Paul’s stands. Somewhere in the distance, a nightingale sings. But not here, not now, not on this corner between the butcher and the barber, not on this street where the flow of cars mimics the River Thames. A few crêpes framed by grey misty light—under a pound a plate if you make them at home—and a view overlooking a more common sight than Tower Bridge or Soho. But is this so very common, the sight of passersby? Under my window, a mother stands. Under my window, a grocer sings. They have paused; they exchange greetings, then they go by. ‘Come again’, Westminster beckons, ‘Come again’, Chinatown cries. But how rare the same Londoner returns before my eyes…

Not Old Yet

I have forgotten how to write. I have forgotten how thoughts of poetry and love and life caress my mind when day turns to night. I have forgotten the sublime on the subway, the magical at the marketplace, the divine at the doors of homes to a hundred thousand dreams. I have forgotten them all. This must be the kind of death about which children were once warned. The kind of death that the Little Prince would not deign to endure. This must be how children grow old. But no, no, no, there is a glimmer yet in candlelight at dusk. There is a melody yet among the birds at dawn. And the cool, smooth page feels inviting still. Please, please, let me remember again.