Augustine Paredes
Select Client Work
& Editorial Projects
Cracking, at the
Mercy of Daylight
In response to Zishi Han’s Uncontain
Published in Slow Disco
after losing one after the other,
bodies become bones become ashes,
floating across, along, around
emptiness can be shared,
but grief.
in the absence of fire,
the clay hardens
at the gaze of its creator.
It cracks.
At the center, it begins.
What if I told you the afterimage
is a collapse waiting to happen?
For now, the center will hold.
My palm begins where
this clay ends, when I push
it is as though I become again
the ash where I come from.
There are holes scattered
across this barren land,
tears flow through, as earth tears,
yearning.
I mold myself in
to a shape I long to hold,
desire.
Hoping against hope, I
do not crack when the sun
gazes at me, strongly.
My crevices become craters.
My salty water, frothing craving to be one with an ocean.
A tether is pulling. And as I resist, I push,
mold to be the clay I long to hold.
The center is barely holding.
What if I knew the afterimage is dissolved
and the collapse is the mold, unmolding?
The center will bare.
And so I become,
and slowly I come close,
and closer to the sun
hands facing towards.
These two palms hold wisdom,
hidden between the lines spread out.
I am the hollow,
holding the emptiness which a clay longs to mold.
I am the body,
losing bodies, bones, ashes, blood frothing across, along,
around to be one with an ocean.
I am the clay,
unmolding slowly at the mercy of my creator.
Emptiness can be filled,
but grief.✶