“Agonizing Peace” — Steven Liu ’22

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.