OVERCAST

Though the world changes quickly,
Like shapes of clouds,
Everything once finished falls
Back to ancient grounds.

R.M. Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, I,19 (trans. G. Kinnell and H. Liebmann)



An apt reminder from Rilke. “Everything once finished…” fun times, old and new friends, new things, discoveries, sights and sounds, accumulating debris…all shall come to an end.

It is a fact, an inescapable reality. That ever imminent dark cloud, that shadowy overcast that gets in the way of the ephemeral sun rays that fall on each of us, is simply there waiting for its cue to dawn upon us at the appointed time.

This I suspect is the cause for many a desperate soul to scamper for temporary shelters and all manners of cover. It is there. It is coming. One day it’s here! Before we knew it, we are already smothered by it.

So why worry? Why the anxiety? Why the futile attempt to hold on to things that shall one day be swept away together with all the rest?

Nothing that we could firmly grasp with our hands shall remain; but only those that has latched onto the innermost chamber of our hearts.