I never denied the beauty:
Imperial pomp of sunrise,
The seductive glamour of sunset.
The snaking voluptuous river,
Swollen with incessant downpours,
The glitter of rare raw minerals,
A glimmer waiting in the depths.
Beyond the mist in the distance,
The harrowing sublimity of mountains.
The perceived chant of the angels,
Drifting across the aether.
The vertiginous descent of the eagle,
Intent upon the sighted prey.
The patient strength of the ox,
Harnessed for growth and generation.
The gilded and haloed lion,
Surveying the buffet of the savannah.
The shining lights of the city,
On the snow capped hilltop.
The voluminous text of flesh
Awaiting to be read in the dark.
The beauty of the world is undoubted:
But I suspected treachery
A beauty that bites after caressing
Wanting to leave its mark
Because it too is just passing
A floating world of samsara,
Always changing; never
Still: completes a cycles,
Pauses briefly before transformation
Then same as it ever was,
Is or will be.
Ma Yuan-The Waving Surface of the Autumn Flood c1222
There, among the canals, every twist and turn
Leads to the unexpected, yet another splendour,
Riot of decadence, symbolic decay, hinting at danger;
Look upward though at the sun illuminating the water
Flowing past the grandeur hidden in vaults
Towards the ever present Island of the Dead,
Flooding the damned Cities of the Plain
Further still rushing beyond the Pure Land
To cascade inexorably onto the Other Shore.
Here, in this place's essence of impermanence, I taste eternity.
James Abbott McNeil Whistler-The Doorway 1879/1880
This place has the shimmer of an illusory construct
Though rumour has it exists in actuality
The tales told suggest some impossible fable
Realised through masses of stone and marble
In certain lights disappearing, rendered invisible
Then when the mists disperse, dissipate, revealing,
Floating above the void,
Sinking into the abyss;
The Capital of Impermanence.
For a fractured moment I was in an imaginary country (Though all countries are imaginary in the context of eternity) Dreaming delicately within the confines of the Palace of the Moon Of melting and malleable nephrite, diamond, mountain While the scent of jasmine and rose lingered throughout centuries Sunlight and shade colluded to cast a permanent twilit glow Rendering every corner, corridor and doorway mysterious If I stop at a window the view is always surprising, different Sometimes birds and butterflies hover motionless in the spring riot At the next flight a blanket of snow covers the sleeping earth In between lotus eating I await the one mandated by Heaven The Empress of desires whose kiss resonates on my lips forever
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