Twelve Clouds, Softly Slowly

TRANSIENCE

 

Nothing lasts.

Stars eventually go out, the moon pulls away inch by inch. The exhausted planet’s orbit is slowing. This is physics—the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy. None of it matters in the grand scheme of time.

 

I make pictures of things in the natural world so that in the short time I’m here I can hold them close, marvel over each one—remember it all as it is, commemorate. There are incredible, miraculous things to witness. A comet came and left for another 800 years. The earth’s shadow eclipsed the moon again, and my sister’s missing cat, lost for a year, returned home.

 

In the sky, the clouds form, change color, dissipate, like our hearts filling and emptying, every moment, every day. There is joy in watching flowers gracefully droop and wither, a too-obvious metaphor for the transience of life, yet so exquisite. A part of me aches for every little creature dead on the road. Unbearable beauty and unbearable sadness, everywhere, coming and going all the time, all tangled up.

 

Kate Breakey. 2022