The Solitary Man

Sei Shōnagon writes in her pillow book that when she begins to settle into her cell in a temple which she has travelled to with friends for several days of prayer she notices that the man in the cell next to hers is lying prostrate on the ground, praying inaudibly. She expects him to rise soon, but he continues thus for hours. She calls him the solitary man. ‘I was very moved,’ she writes. When he does get up, he rests, then says his devotions, but so quietly that she cannot make out what the words are.

Does she relate to him? She doesn’t say. Do I? This poem is the answer.

Night Sky

A friend wrote that we are each a combination of time and eternity. He did not know that another friend had just taken his flight – that that friend was now only eternity, I left on the runway holding a scrap of him in my hand.

Before there was incandescent urban street lighting, one could see the entire night sky. Incandescent street lighting is neither time nor eternity. It is fake. The stars move very slowly or very fast, one cannot tell because for that one needs to see a backdrop.

I hold a scrap of my friend in my hand. That is not fake. That is beautiful.