out of my cell & onto the trail i walk the vast expanse, the vault of heaven above & hills of rolling green beneath my feet and clouds barge through blue skies like thoughts barge through my mind - sluggishly but inevitably
on a green hillside stands a line of dead trees, looking like driftwood
densely packed stands of pine, the dark green insinuating black shadow set against the verdant grassy meadows and shaggy scrubland it makes the mountain look angular, with sharp edges pounded into shape the pine-writ shadows steal depth, suggesting absence, creating the impression of emptiness, a false void... or so it seems
clouds drift; a boy traces shapes with a pointing finger
fogged in at a teahouse, a growing gray of view, this world lacks sharp lines, excepting the hint of: -a sloping roofline & -a building's corner these lines are sharp relative to the amorphous gray; but fuzzy compared to the same line's clarity on a blue sky day now, they're blurred, as if the village had been painted by a skilled - but lazy - painter, a sumi-e master with a melancholy soul
