無常の流れ Mujō no Nagare (Impermanence Flow)

Morning mist rises from concrete—
the city breathes through steel lungs,
exhales yesterday's promises
into today's uncertainty.

A businessman's reflection fractures
in puddles that mirror neon signs,
each ripple erasing
the face he wore at twenty,
replacing it with lines
drawn by decades of subway commutes
and convenience store dinners.

Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.

The vending machine hums
its electric lullaby,
dispensing coffee that tastes
of artificial warmth—
same aluminum can,
different thirst each time.
The salary man feeds coins
into metal mouths that swallow
his loose change
and small hopes.

In Shibuya, crowds flow
like water finding cracks
in urban stone.
Each person a droplet
in the greater stream,
believing in their solid form
while dissolving
into the movement of many.

A grandmother's hands
fold origami cranes
from newspaper headlines—
war becomes wing,
earthquake transforms to tail,
political scandal curves
into delicate neck.
Paper memory
of forests that became
words that became
birds that will become
ash.

Mono no aware—
the pathos of things
passing.

Cherry blossoms fall
in Ueno Park,
each petal a small death
that makes room
for green leaves
that will brown
and drop
to feed the roots
of next spring's flowering.

The high school student
photographs the falling petals
with her smartphone,
trying to capture
what cannot be held—
beauty in transition,
the moment between
being and becoming.
Her digital memory
stores pixels
where petals lived,
light where life moved.

Bullet trains slice
through rice fields
where scarecrows stand
in yesterday's clothing,
their straw hearts
understanding impermanence
better than the passengers
who race toward futures
that shift like sand
beneath speeding wheels.

An old man feeds carp
in the temple pond,
watching orange shadows
move beneath lotus pads.
The fish rise to the surface,
mouths opening like questions
without words—
What is permanent?
What remains?

Water circles
where their lips touched air,
expanding outward
until they disappear
at the pond's edge,
leaving only memory
in water's surface tension.

Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.

In the ramen shop,
steam rises from bowls
like incense,
the master's hands
moving in the same rhythm
his father's hands moved,
his grandfather's hands moved—
yet each bowl different,
each broth a new conversation
between fire and time,
salt and soul.

The noodles soften
as they're eaten,
texture changing with each bite
until bowl holds only
the echo of satisfaction,
the ghost of hunger
appeased.

Neon signs flicker
in Shinjuku—
some letters dead,
others blazing,
spelling half-words
in broken light.
The city speaks
in electrical tongues,
its voice changing
with each burned bulb,
each replaced tube.

Night workers emerge
as day workers disappear,
the city's skin
shedding one life
for another,
the same streets
hosting different dreams.

A mother teaches her child
to write kanji—
brush strokes that carry
centuries of meaning
in fleeting ink.
Tree becomes forest
with one additional stroke.
Person becomes big
when arms spread wide.

Each character
a moment of becoming,
wet ink drying
into permanent impermanence—
fixed until the paper yellows,
until water washes,
until fire consumes,
until time erases
what seemed eternal.

Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.

The salaryman's son
plays video games
where characters die
and resurrect,
where worlds end
and begin again
with the press of a button.
He understands
what his father forgets—
that nothing saves
permanently,
that every game
starts over.

Cicadas cry their summer song,
seventeen years underground
to sing for seventeen days,
their voices the sound
of time compressed,
of patience rewarded
with brief, intense music
that fills the air
then fades to memory.

In the cemetery,
stone markers stand
like silent witnesses
to names that once
breathed air,
spoke words,
loved imperfectly.
Incense burns
in small offerings,
smoke carrying prayers
to whatever comes after
the last exhalation.

The businessman's reflection
in the train window
overlays the landscape
rushing past—
his face becomes
mountain and rice field,
urban and rural
existing simultaneously
in glass that holds
nothing permanent,
everything passing.

Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.

Dawn breaks
over Tokyo Bay,
the same sun
that rose over Edo,
over fishing villages,
over samurai and merchants
and all the lives
that thought themselves
permanent fixtures
in an impermanent world.

Light touches concrete
and glass and steel,
warming surfaces
that will cool
when night returns,
when the earth turns
its face away
from the sun
that burns
and will burn out
and will be remembered
in light that traveled
years to reach
eyes that see
and will close
and will be remembered
in stories told
to children who will grow
and age and tell
their own children
about the sun.

The city awakens
with electronic chirps,
alarm clocks singing
the same urgent song
to different dreamers
emerging from sleep
into the flowing day
that has never existed before
and will never exist again.

Mujō—
the teaching
written in water,
spoken in wind,
lived in every
breath
between
birth
and
silence.