I find myself returning to poems like “The Silver Lily” and “Witchgrass” for their drastic reimaginings of time — the eternal way perennial plants experience the cyclicity of seasons, or the striking temporality of the fragile flower. It is in light of this that her death feels strangely unreal, its finality in tension with the timelessness of her words.
On my phone, I collected gold coins and hoverboards instead of accolades and exam scores; I traded these tokens for score boosters instead of writing mentorships. Eventually, I realized that I had sworn off one endless run only to replace it with another one.
“A person should stand up straight, not crooked,” my mother would whisper, referring to both the calligrapher and her creation.
I felt like I had entered a thick and strange haze. Daily showers made me feel unnaturally clean, and I missed the smooth arc of the sun across the sky. I felt like a space alien walking down a crowded street and making small talk after class.