incandescens | over a green grass lake

People were a bit sparse on the ground at work today: a lot of them had taken one or more days off this week, to take advantage of the lovely long weekends. Can't blame them. And, let's be fair, it did make work in general quieter and with fewer disturbances.

Feeling rather tired now, though. Partly the moral obligation to try and fit the week's work into three days, and everyone getting their heads down and shoving. Partly some very stupid queries that came through the helpdesk and needed very careful answers to make sure that the originators didn't get confused. And partly, I think, I forgot to take a hayfever tablet this morning and spent a lot of the day feeling bunged up. (I was in a hurry to get to work, which would explain forgetting it -- however, I couldn't be entirely certain that I'd forgotten, so I didn't like to take a new tablet in case it'd have been a second one that day. All right, so it probably wouldn't have been at all serious if I had, but you know how the mind gets set on these points.)

Anyhow.

That royal wedding thing tomorrow. Someone has strung red, white, and blue bunting around in the area outside the apartments. Since they weren't actually union jack buntings, just plain ones in three colours, I had the sudden (quickly resisted) urge to find someone and ask if we were celebrating Bastille Day or something since we had bunting hanging around in the French colours. (I have a perverse sense of humour. But you know that.)

There will probably be noise tomorrow morning. Not sure yet whether or not I'll sleep through it. I certainly don't plan to set my alarm clock to wake me up early.

---

The Sand and the Waves

The sand comes and goes, wave after wave.
The surge dies, another rises.
Stirring and re-forming endlessly,
They level the mountains and seas in time.

The white waves go out into the vast ocean.
The smooth sand stretches away into boundless distance.
Ceaselessly, day and night, never ending
They will make the east ocean into a land of fields.

To journey ten thousand miles over a green grass lake,
I set sail alone in monsoon rains,
Continually perturbed at the thought of a harbor at night,
Where the winds whistle and somber waves are lapping.

Tell me why the river and the sea
Resemble so much your love and my heart.
What disturbs me is that you are not so faithful as the waves;
To be without you is to see the depths of the seas.

There will be a day when dust will fly over this sea.
One day, too, the mountains will turn into sand.
Who had thought my love would abandon me here,
Or that the prow of the ship is never turned back?

Following the tides, riding the waves to the horizon,
How many travelers ever returned?
You may search in the city for wealth and power,
But remember always what happens to sand and waves.

-- Po Chu-i, translated by Ching Ti