Life and Death in Lopburi

Whats in this story

 


There is no beauty more enrapturing than that of juxtaposition

Opposing forces exchanging unlikely compliments

Two distinct realities

Mutually exclusive until suddenly they’re not

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Until suddenly it’s impossible to  imagine one without the other

As if this is the way the Mother intended for us to see the world

With this contradictory magic

One that’s kept itself a secret from us until this very moment

But has surely always been

 

Intrigue and inspiration

An offering of insight

A clarifying declaration

“Look, we can exist together

In fact, we’re better that way

 

Light is lovely.

But darkness puts the depth in my eyes”


 

I had seen you once before

Only from afar

A silhouette

You were the enigmatical darkness cast against a burning, orange sky

 

I needed to know you.

But you were gated

Locked up

“Not today”

 

When you finally let me in

You didn’t hold back

“Revel in my entirety

My wholeness

Light and dark

Life and ruin

Watch in wonder at the cleverness with which I am able to grow, at my buzzing, blissful movement, my vivid color, my perpetual transformation

Yet delight in my divine decay, my beautiful collapse, my implacable disintegration

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You’ll find one is not more beautiful than the other

If you’re going to love me, both will be to blame”

 

So I explored you.

Enchanted by your living grace

Mesmerized by the markings on your face

Telling tales of another life

 

I climbed to your tallest tower.

Inside lay a dead songbird

Outside, a fluttering mosaic of butterflies

A single, white flower

Sprouting from a cracked, ancient, red brick

In the face of ruin and death,

Life

Beautiful and unapologetic

 

I stood in the doorway

Pressed my small hands hard against the stone frame

The sun licked at my face, leaving my cheeks and lips tingling

A cool wind blew up around me

Lifting the black curls off the back of my too-white neck

The songbirds whistled a death march for their fallen brother behind me

The butterflies, unaware that there is ugliness in the world, floated on.

 

And there I stood

A world of power inside of one tiny body

A tragic comedy

A work in progress and a masterpiece.

In the doorway of ruin

Alive

Beautiful and unapologetic

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