THE COLORS OF FEAR: The Architecture of a Frozen Heart

	Why waste time loving anyone?
	What's the value in opening up?
	Why anchor hope to flesh that fails and falters?
	Haven't we already swallowed enough salt and sorrow?

	Isn't it simpler to stand alone -
	to watch the fires of fervor fall to ash? 
	Shouldn't we still our restless mind -
	finding a semblance of happiness deep inside?

	So I built, by cold arithmetic,
	a citadel where my heart once beat—
	shearing the scarlet plumage from my wings,
	sealing the doors to human intimacy,
	calling this "wisdom.""

	In the icy, isolated insularity of zen
	a hushed, hollow quietness is reached,
	a silence akin to winter glass:
	the satori of a single hand clapping
	is a wonderful, yet ultimately empty peace.

	That state is a peace so perfect it forgets its own name,
	so complete it empties into no thing.


SETTING: Four friends are discussing a graphic poem in an coffee shop. The air has 
a slight smell of cinnamon rolls, stale cigarettes, and lukewarm coffee. Outside the 
window, a steady, cold rain slicks the streets.  

Cantara: (inhaling sharply, then blowing her nose) Ugh—this poem is so wimpy! 
         The author sounds like a soggy handkerchief dipped in second-rate  melancholy.
         I want to shake the author until his teeth rattle. 
         Life is too short and precious to dwell in gloomy or pessimistic thoughts! 

Tim:     (chuckling  and leaning back with a loose, careless grace) Yeah, the guy’s such 
         a tragic cliché. He’s stuck in emotional rigor mortis.

Miok:    (frowning slightly, voice measured) Perhaps isolation makes sense in a way?
         Human love nearly always drifts toward disappointment, doesn’t it?  We yearn 
         for warmth, but often end up getting scorched. Choosing not to love might or 
         too intimate with any human be a good survival strategy.

Tim:     (calmy) Disappointment and pain are simple parts of life along with joy and delight! 
         Seriously, Miok, pain’s no curse. It’s a teacher.  If we’re disappointed, it 
         means we dared to hope. I regard fear as a gatekeeper, testing who’s brave 
         enough to pay the cost to love.

Chris:   (quietly, looking away at a rain-streaked window) At some point, many people 
         become tired of being brave and some scars shut us down. (Chris then lowers his 
         head and stares at the desk, locked in thought. His silence swells, broken only 
         by the sound of the rain.)

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from Heart Scenes: Emotional Landscapes via Art, Poetry, & Prose by T Newfields
Summary: A digital collage, conversation, and pseudo-poem about human entanglement.
Keywords: human bondage, maya, illusion, attachment and desire

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955 - ?)
Begun: 2005 in Tokyo, Japan ☆ Finished: 2025 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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TRANSLATIONS

Deutsch  https://www.tnewfields.info/de/farben.htm
Español  https://www.tnewfields.info/es/mcolores.htm
Français https://www.tnewfields.info/fr/couleurs.htm
Nihongo  https://www.tnewfields.info/jp/kyoufu.htm