I Woke up in Flowers

Oh, what paths of beauty shall adorn the unique charm of a winter’s day? Innumerable are the moments when I've been engulfed in a grandeur of white emptiness – or is it a borderless box full of misted air. Air that blurs my vision yet enchants me with the irresistible lust for wander, with only the amber glow of streetlamps that guides one towards a welcoming feast across the village roads. A persistent ordinariness that prevails, a fright of icy gusts, or a whisper of solace and accord as the sun sinks low. But now, the winter has slipped into the river of bygone days. The departure of the dreadful age brings little joy of hope. I once held the disdain for the season of unliving, yet a fateful encounter motivated me to embrace with open heart – a heart, once frozen, now thawed by the warmth of within, no longer yearning for the arrival of spring. When the months of dreaming arrive at the terminus of awake, I was but struck by the sudden passing of old time. Reminiscence of the winter lingers by the ruins of good memories, among which I woke within.

Ah, I woke up in ruins. A place so familiar to which I paid a visit – where once I chanced upon an old acquaintance. In days of yore, we were both wanderers amidst great upheaval. Once, from the shattered statues, vines of roses did grow. Though the memories were distant, I recall them well, how they wove the crumbled rocks into a verdant garden, wherein I have since long dwelled. Ah, what shall I see amidst this graveyard of passed time? Should the sunlight be obstructed by the thickened layers of clouds, I will cast my vision onto the slender thread of light that shines as brilliantly as a beam. May it shatter the long-standing silence of this season of demise. May the sacred light spread throughout this land, and the dimness shall never reign in any sighted corner. Holy lights, holy grails. But alas, my soul craves to venture near, to bathe beneath its mighty luminescence, yet the gossamer strand of radiance appears an unattainable aspiration, forever beyond the grasp of this mortal hand. Has my light of redemption ever drawn near to embrace my wretched soul?

Liars! Fraud of beings. I am but a slave to this ceaseless path of affliction, where every seeming benevolence to my welfare is a veil for harsh tribulation. Oh, what have I missed? Does my heart yearn for the amber glow of autumn's dusk, or the winter's eve filled with the warmest of classical piano tunes? The seafaring vessel of the coldest time lingers as an indelible recollection, unprepared to be dispatched to greet the arrival of the new. Alas, what have I been expecting for? Has my very soul been fated to tread this path to fiery hell? Is my destiny but a curse, devoid of any hope of absolution? Ah, a time existed when my life was aflame with joy and ardor, when my heart was resolute and unsullied. Alas, behold me now, a wretched specter of my former figure!

Yet my sight would remain even at the darkest time; that the heavens above are shrouded in a thick blanket of gray, as if the firmament is veiled in an impenetrable haze of obscurity. I may see, and I may feel. I feel the everywhere of raindrops upon the earth below, as if nature herself weeps in mourning for that shared grief. The once-unified landscape now lies cleaved into fragments of light and dim. Mirrors had been sundered into a thousand shards, reflecting the pale sky, moving clouds, as nature undergoes that baptism of cleansing rain. And yet, even in the midst of this melancholic rain, light endures. Light would pass through the impenetrable canopy and cast that fainted smile to the beloved land, a sign of renewal and rebirth, as every living thing awaits the eventual end of the rain.

The ants gaze in awe at the towering heights of the mountains and marvel at the grace of winged creatures soaring through the skies. What, then, lies beyond the layered veil of clouds, in that realm beyond my vision’s reach? When the aqua-blue emerges from above the cloak of gray, unveiling its veiled splendor and a medley of purity; when the vibrance unfurls across the canvas of the sky into a modern masterpiece; when the tempests of upheaval, like waves crashing against the palms of the divine, herald the advent of transformation; when the creatures harness the trade winds, embarking on a voyage towards the unknown horizons of far embracing. Where will I be, then? To a sun-drenched meadow, abounding in verdant grasses and blooming flowers? Where the fragrance of lavender and the fiery gold of sunflowers fill the air; beneath the sheltering boughs of a willow, beside the tranquil turquoise waters of a lake of gooses and ducks. And when the clouds dissipate into fluffy cottons of sheer delight, when the eyes of ants and eagles alike gaze skyward at the boundless expanse of azure blue, what wonders shall I encounter on the thousand paths yet untrodden?

Have once the shattered statures become the bed for vines of red roses, so too shall flowers emerge on this enchanted land. For in the ruins of a mourned past lie the seeds of sceneries of unseen. Let it be pain, so I would wake up in piles of ruins. Let it be a soul forever wandering and questing, so that when the dawn breaks, I shall arise in a bed of flowers.