I have carried a shadow in my heart from my very first winter a sorrow for our impermanence for the frailty of my father’s hands for the lengthening silhoutte left by our kind in this world in the long notes of a violin a melancholy so profound have I felt as to long for the embrace of the Valkyrie the bite of arctic bitterness and in his weathered face I see the desolation of his loss the reification of our existence us, wee creatures, living between the burning of the moment and the quiescence of the great void the old skalds have said we are but ravens on a brief flight through the great mead hall and the myriad angels gather to witness the breaking of each chrysalis as does my darkness bear the wistful nostalgia of who I’ve become but enough of it. one must eventually transcend or die. transcend and die we move on without a choice as does the entirety of existence as do the fields of tulips, unaware of the unfolding tragedy of economics of the calamities we engender we move on as do the great masses ever clamouring for freedoms and entitlements oblivious to the mechanics of karma of the immutable laws of the world and to move on means to look only forward — the lesson of the koi, who cannot swim backwards and profit never from the past for each moment is unique and history teaches nothing the shadow weighs on me all these many lustra and still it’s there my ancient companion — une tendresse eternelle, it seems but I own it now today is day one 21 XII 2020