Passion is in the pine trees, at whichever distance they may stand, swaying between branches at a condescending height, oblivious and giving everything to those with whom it is already familiar, those who need nothing. How heartless is such unawareness. How inconsiderate is such carelessness for others that wait. And here in the city, it is evasive still. The tossing wind descends on the town. People hurry to their destinations and their destinies, pulling jackets closer around them, pursing lips, shuddering and looking with a disbelieving sense of betrayal at the sun.
Bliss is sprinkled on the blankets in which the two clinging bodies lay, if only in the imagination of an outsider, somewhere in a far off location. They are so overcome by it; they will cause an explosion if they are not contained. So very selfish are they not to know that others are standing by. Sitting in the city bus, someone rides over a long and lonely bridge, observing that mighty skyline in anguish or swaying under the metal bars inside the subway car, staring at the moving blackness, surrounded by so many who promise nothing.
Affection lingers on the rim of a teacup holding the just-sipped brew made by a lover’s careful hands. It wavers in a room where two people need not speak for the fragrance that is floating between them, swirling happily upward like smoke lifting from a stick of incense and sweet, sweet, sweet. Such callousness has to be occurring on another continent, well worth its distance in kilometers from this barren place. There from the island window, the water looks gray and still, like mercury poured out into a bowl for all the wandering minds in the surrounding city buildings to draw towards and look.
