the solitude of Queenstown translated by PLS 1 sunrise behind you, in the middle of an autumn upon an unknown tree, one leaf, sometimes half green half red sometimes fully green, you never know, which is its true colour most trees are left with few leaves, dangling on the tips of branches like wind chimes dancing at the edge of the eave, so often so close to being lured away by wind you never know if it’s out of their own belief, or fate, they are still gyrating under the branches, making pretty sounds— the sounds entangled with dusty wind, floating on no set directions, meaning the direction is everywhere going everywhere and having nowhere to go, may both be considered freedom if they still return after all the travelling, those leaves, perhaps had their own destination long ago it is through these twists and turns, they have met some kind people offering some goodness to the arid land, witnessing the villagers’ suffering they live full of hope, yet do not really understand fate but those who know a thing or two about fate, can’t live properly 2 the wintry cold, has its own structure not sure if it’s the cold wind that slaps me, or me who barges into the interior of a gust, disturbing its will for winter i’ve stared at the sky before a winter day turns to night half moon, one side a clear arc, the other sfumatoed by misty clouds surrounded by a clear halo, looking up from where i am (if that height means the sky) as if through a neat crevice in the dark veil, disclosing its inquisitive, honest eyes it’s difficult to know, whether it’s my stare that probes it, or itself that has been probing the land I stand upon all along after all it understands the night and winter better, the solitude of Queenstown on this land 3 as the temperature drops, it starts snowing atop the mountains maintaining the wintry prestige is the responsibility of every mountain, it’s been like this, the tradition is older than the mountains only the sound of wind chimes that passes, can then through a few detours, tell the people under the mountains: there’s only solitude of the snow high up if the snow envelops the whole mountain, when the sound passes by, it will be frozen, unable to reach the next stop, the higher height and only the Wakatipu Lake at the foot of the snow mountain, can stand the new weight of the snow mountain stand the scream of every snowflake as they crack, stand the spring as they melt stand me, stand you— you are, the snow that never reaches my door where you lie is the depth of my eyes, one winter then you’ll leave like many who have come to skate, who would’t stay forever with what they love, and would’t stay only with them the sound of wind chimes has turned into my sinuous longing, that passes by the height you never reach and returned to where i am again, returned to leaf— this is the resurrection of one winter and many winters this is the twisting obedience this is the solitude of Queenstown
