The Jiyu Tree

    I wished my old tree good morning as I rustled my way through its branches and set my back down on the slope that its trunk had been building. The sunlight had just begun to lift the dewdrops, slowly making room for the songleaves around them to transform the new morning breeze into the music of the spirits.

   You cannot hear the first note of a jiyu's song. There is no grand entrance or catchy hook. It's more like a choir of thousands of distant voices all entering and exiting at different times with their pre-ordained notes. When you start to hear the song, you realize that it's been singing for a while, only your mind was not clear enough to focus on it. No mind has been or will ever be clear enough to know which of a jiyu's leaves sang first. Only the tree can know, and it will forever keep it secret.

Lost time is never found again...

   "You seem quiet this morning. Thinking about something?"
   "Just thinking about home."
   "Ah. You know, we're soon coming upon two months here-"
   A cold wind rudely interrupted Cal and stirred the soupy fog around them. Kip quickly rushed to the tent and produced a pair of coats.
   "Thank you, Kip"
   "No problem. Don't know If I'll ever get used to how dense this air is. Every gust hits you like a dip in the ocean... Anyway, you were saying?"
   "I was just saying that homesickness usually sets in after a couple months of being away."
   "That what your psychology classes taught you?"
   "Well, were they wrong?"
   "Hah. You got me there."
   She cracked a grin and withdrew a bit into her coat. Kip continued.
   "It's just... I've recently realized that being away has already changed me. It's a small change, almost unnoticeable. But it's happening continuously and it makes me think about what we're doing out here"
   "Every event in our lives changes us. No one can stay the same forever. And besides you're already here. You'd be wasting even more time getting back home."
   "I'm not planning to suddenly up and leave everyone. I'm just worried about what happens after we pack up and go home. We don't get this part of our lives back, you know? At the end of all this, I'm going to look back at all this time I spent working my ass off in this wasteland and think about what kind of person it made me into. And I'll ask myself..."
   He stumbled on a tremor in his throat, but came back after a breath.
   "I'll ask myself if who I am is worth the time I spent here. Right now, I don't know if the answer will be yes, and that's what worries me the most."
   "You worry too much, Kip. You're driving yourself mad over the natural state of things. My people have a saying for your worries: 'One who fears the river shall perish in the flood'."
   "Well that's certainly uplifting"

Ithagrin 1

You told me once that you could feel the exact moment when a tsunami was forming at the bottom of the ocean. There was a sort of unease in the ground, that you could feel it crawling up your legs and filling your lungs with tension. You told me it was some kind of hereditary trait your family developed over countless years of turning the land of our moon. I liked to imagine that I too had supernatural senses. I made believe that my eyes could follow the weaves of a fluttering duskfly or that my head was shaped just right to pick up the alien signals. If your face was telling the truth (and it always was), you never picked up the jealousy behind my weirdness. Mel, on the other hand, could always develop some logical explanation for my weird imagining of the day. I guess intelligence was her hereditary sense. All my parents gave me was a bilingual tongue and a knack for empathy. Though I guess there are always worse situations to be born into.

I dream my painting...and then I paint my dream.

A pixellated dream world

begets a work of paint.

Your simulated mindfulness

turns me into a saint.

Mental image, quantum states,

Our soul becomes collapsed.

My high-pass filters resonate,

With you resounding last.

Jiyu 1

Jiyu... Do you still remember that name? It's the name that You, Mil, and I took on our wedding day 4 years ago. We chose that name after the giant jiyu tree that grew in the fields between our homes on Pangum. None of our parents wanted to bother cutting it down for more farmland, so they gave it to us to play in. I remember chasing leaf mice with you two. Mil would always catch them first, and then I'd pet them while you studied how their breathing rate affected their pulse or whatever it was that day. I remember our first kiss under that tree. How I could suddenly feel what you two were feeling when our cheeks were close together, and my thoughts were suddenly not only my own. I remember the wedding we had beneath that same jiyu tree, and I remember how you looked when you told us you had to ship out for Surien.
It's been 3 years and 24 days since that moment, but I imagine you won't remember that either. It's strange, how amnesia works. When I saw you last, you were fully aware of who you were, but you had no idea of how you came to be that person. It made me sad to think you may never remember us, but I started to see some of the memories flickering back near the end. I am writing to see if I can spark as many of those memories back as I can. Some of them might be hard to relive, some of them you may never recall, but I will try my best at any rate. Mil and I both need you to remember how you became Kip Jiyu. Our own minds depend on it.

    -Lif Jiyu, Surien 5.2, Annum 3157

Eyes of White Elm

Eyes of white elm 

 and marks in black charcoal. 

Her tanned and taut skin, 

 a silver screen marvel.

-

The strength that I thought 

would always persist 

had lost too much hope 

for will to exist.

So when she had offered 

it troubled me so 

that loneliness spoke 

and didn't say no.

-

We butchered the night 

with blades of our silence. 

dysfunction washed filth 

with emotional violence.

And when it was over 

I packed up and flew 

for all we had done 

at once came to view.

-

Eyes of white elm, 

and nothing to trust. 

our bodies abused, 

addicted to lust.

Childhood is the Kingdom of Immortality

They once ruled this body, this mind
the monarchs of immortal kind

They were once the morning dew,
the early birds on days anew

Mettled through ambition's fire,
they sank to earth to toil and tire

By lustful pulls from wealthy forces
they sold their kingdoms for their courses

and learned how they ought sow their seeds
to sate their higher order needs

then millions left their dreaming realms
to wake up next to spears and helms

a kingdom's weight in gold is free
when freedom takes eternity.