Sans Wu

wu (chinese) ~ without/sans

would you be willing to give up everything
for a reason
would you be willing to give up everything
for no reason

The Cosmic Orphan

When I was a young lad of that indefinite but important age when one begins to ask, Who am I? Why am I here? What is the nature of my kind? What is growing up? What is the world? How shall I live in it? Where shall I go? I found myself walking with a small companion over a high railroad trestle that spanned a stream, a country bridge, and a road. One could look fearfully down, between the ties, at the shallows and ripples in the shining water some 50 feet below. One was also doing a forbidden thing, against which our parents constantly warned. One must not be caught on the black bridge by a train. Something terrible might happen, a thing called death.

From the abutment of the bridge we gazed down upon the water and saw among the pebbles the shape of an animal we knew only from picture books--a turtle, a very large, dark mahogany-coloured turtle. We scrambled down the embankment to observe him more closely. From the little bridge a few feet above the stream, I saw that the turtle, whose beautiful markings shone in the afternoon sun, was not alive and that his flippers waved aimlessly in the rushing water. The reason for his death was plain. Not too long before we had come upon the trestle, someone engaged in idle practice with a repeating rifle had stitched a row of bullet holes across the turtle's carapace and sauntered on.

My father had once explained to me that it took a long time to make a big turtle, years really, in the sunlight and the water and the mud. I turned the ancient creature over and fingered the etched shell with its forlorn flippers flopping grotesquely. The question rose up unbidden. Why did the man have to kill something living that could never be replaced? I laid the turtle down in the water and gave it a little shove. It entered the current and began to drift away. "Let's go home," I said to my companion. From that moment I think I began to grow.

"Papa," I said in the evening by the oil lamp in our kitchen. "Tell me how men got here." Papa paused. Like many fathers of that time he was worn from long hours, he was not highly educated, but he had a beautiful resonant voice and he had been born on a frontier homestead. He knew the ritual way the Plains Indians opened a story.

"Son," he said, taking the pattern of another people for our own, "once there was a poor orphan." He said it in such a way that I sat down at his feet. "Once there was a poor orphan with no one to teach him either his way, or his manners. Sometimes animals helped him, sometimes supernatural beings. But above all, one thing was evident. Unlike other occupants of Earth he had to be helped. He did not know his place, he had to find it. Sometimes he was arrogant and had to learn humility, sometimes he was a coward and had to be taught bravery. Sometimes he did not understand his Mother Earth and suffered for it. The old ones who starved and sought visions on hilltops had known these things. They were all gone now and the magic had departed with them. The orphan was alone; he had to learn by himself; it was a hard school."

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My Reason

the reason i am not what i want to be
is the reason i am not doing what i want to do

Solaris

00. 00:00  The Solaris torrent is not responding
01. 02:49  Is That What Everybody Wants
02. 02:53  First Sleep
03. 01:45  Can I Sit Next To You
04. 05:01  Will She Come Back
05. 02:10  Death Shall Have No Dominion
06. 03:50  Maybe You're My Puppet
07. 03:34  Don't Blow It
08. 10:51  Hi Energy Proton Accelerator
09. 03:10  Wear Your Seat Belt
10. 04:33  Wormhole
11. 03:01  We Don't Have To Think Like That Anymore

Point of No Return

in between tuesdays and wednesdays
there is a time
when its neither tuesday nor wednesday

in between saturdays and mondays
there is hardly any time

Notes to Myself

what if i could write notes to myself
i would probably still be deaf and blind to them

what if i could believe that my life has nothing to do with me
i would probably still be living just the same

what if i could fly
over the clouds
over peoples lives
i would probably still prefer to walk

what if i could name all my feelings
and catalogue them
in alphabetical order
i would probably still not talk about them to anyone

what if i could try the impossible
i would probably still not believe in its possibility

what if i could paint my insignificance
i would probably still start with a large canvas

what if i could wash away all those ugly sins
scrub hard and thorough
till no patches remained
i would probably still not be innocent

what if i could shout
loud enough to be heard
sure enough to be clear
i would probably still want to be pleasant

what if i could decide between right and wrong
i would probably still be writing notes to myself

LightYear 16

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Memory of the Future

everyday is strange
living with a memory of the future
while the past keeps up
with all the choices i have made

the flowers are a living memory
of the strangers i have been
i have been flowers and
i have been memories