Agonizing Peace

           By Steven Liu, 2019

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Leaves fall from a tree of life

Onto the glass-like water.

With each slight ripple,

Tremble and shake from pain.

The gray sky drizzles with rain,

Dance on the motionless boat.

 

Enter the featherweight boat

Emptiness transforms into life.

Teeming life in refreshing rain

Disrupts the glossy water.

While we prepare for pain,

The stiff oars create ripples.

 

The leaves can feel the ripples

Rocking the graceful black boat.

A barge sounds a noise of pain.

Disrupt the peaceful life

With the bitter water

And the endless fall of rain.

 

Was it the downpour of rain?

Or the startling ripples?

Now rush the freezing water.

Fish surround the empty boat.

Stop the flow of time and life,

Save that instant, forever rowing.

 

Once more, all flows like water.

Learn to ignore the pain.

Just one more day in a boat.

The invigorating rain

Returns and creates ripples.

We dock and continue life.

 

This is all I know of pain.

Soon, winter will freeze the rain,

And snow will impede all life.

The cold will freeze all ripples

And also the metal boat.

Yet we stay with the water.