It’s like a prison here,
Capricci etched by Piranesi
Vast intricate labyrinth,
Every expansively sighted avenue and square
Leads onto a oppressively narrow blind alley,
The burgeoning promise of live beginnings
Turning into an inexorable dead ends,
Away from the press of crowds, abandonment,
A series of solitary cells conterminous with the world.
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
In the primal chaos
Before
Time and things
A split second
Of stillness
Silence
Condensing into a point
Almost disappearing
Smaller than a drifting speck
Of dust
Yet somehow vaster
Than all dimensions
Rushing to fill
The remaining real estate
This is the one
The way
Tao
This is the only
All opposites reconciled
All contradictions resolved
A magistry beyond measure
The integral harmony
Unity in its perfection
Desired multiplicity
Engendering the two
Who fought and loved
Birthing the three
That emanated
All the myriad things
Beneath Heaven
A floating world
Of impermanence
Fleeting phantasies
Transitory thoughts
Nothing so-of-itself
Yet longing for ideal
A oneness yet undivided
For a few seconds a stray sunbeam
Makes visible the dance of dust motes
Swaying, trembling, swooning then falling
I have been granted a glimpse
Of harmony in the floating world
For the moment I am deeply content
Eyelids heavy, chin dropping towards chest
I dream of angels in a distant Heaven
Languidly embracing in the shallows
Of a limpidly becalmed pool.
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