While in the Sunlight

Artwork by Aldwin Li, staff artist

I am alone and being alone is good.

All around, stars wink slyly from their corners of the universe, seizing the chance to flirt with distant neighbors before they all fade away someday. Planets pierce through the black demanding to be noticed. Galaxies whirl in constant motion, nebulas expand. And I am alone. Only the Earth spins, holding invisible strings with which it pulls me along, teaching me a sort of jig. She is my mother. From her I broke away, to her I shall return someday. A chaotic explosion of rock bursting against rock as I rush to meet her and we embrace. Besides her, I go unnoticed. It is perfectly beautiful to observe while unseen. A sense of nirvana is reached, when one floats slowly, unencumbered and indistinct. A life like this is bliss--unmoved by anything but by the cosmos.

I am most content within the dark, within stillness, within solitude.

Then my mother moves and slowly, I see her. The Sun.

She works her way towards me in her particularly peculiar way. She kisses my forehead, my nose, my cheeks, my chin. When she appears, I lose myself to her light. I become radiant. I wish, for just a moment, to shine, to spin, to be seen. I remember my purpose and the tides on Earth roar towards me.

I bask in her light ‘till the ultimate moment, ‘till Earth resumes her dance with me and the sunlight fades, leaving me in darkness again.

I think of her and feel the heat of her lingering kiss, thinking only this: I am the moon, she is the sun, and I dance in the dark, forever anticipating the moment in which her radiant glow will caress my face.