Tractate of Graceful Clouds and Gay Phoenixes

1.
Two sick moles lie under the surface, struggling for breath, thin and depressed, unable to root mountains down or hear lizards sing.
“Why?”
“Because people have found happiness in rushing around, have found beauty in withered things, and have found pleasure in killing even what they don’t see.”

2.
The final piece of ice on the Bernina Range cried too much.
“My time is up,” it said as it left.

3.
“When I was younger, I studied probabilistic turning machines and was confronted by the undecipherability of the halting problem,” jody2342 said. “Later, I learned to relax in the knowledge that my life value was 238,964 times that of Toño Vila the hat-maker in San Esteban Caterina (16P 307128 1513415).”

4.
No¹.

5.
After hauling the sea turtle up in their nets, cutting it into pieces and roasting it, Jai and Joi discovered that it was Vishnu.

6.
Wind dragon Great Fury, drugged on vinyl chloride and mirex, fell asleep at the bottom of the ocean; wind dragon Passive Charm, drunk on ethylene and propylene, ripped over the Northern Hemisphere, tearing up structures and destroying all life it found. Image of a bent palm tree, hair swept south².

7.
The sun, no longer worshipped, became angry at this neglect and burned up what was below, humans taking refuge in skyscrapers, huddling near air conditioning vents. The rocks have long beards.

8.
Each of the azimuths and the ecliptic divisions has its own affinity with the elements. Certain entities (huge bellies balanced on thin legs) smile in absolute contentment, being able to live out the Last Days in such style.

10.
A group of macaque monkeys on an island in Hainan beat their chests as the last leaves disappear from the sandalwood trees. The fire-keeping priests are long dead, but the animals will gather together dried up twigs for their own funeral pyres.

11.
The Rio Grande hangs itself from a big hill in La Cienega, New Mexico, plastic and experimental waste from Los Alamos spilling out its sides. Nearby an old cow lows.

12.
From atop a complex scaffolding of political systems and economic structures, men failed to see disappearance. A period of discord and calamity. The fortunate time for buying land has passed.

13.
The last tree in the Sierra Nevada, old Bristlecone Pine looks on.
“My body twisted and useless, so I survive.”

14.
Few Houses Mountain has many houses.

__________________

¹ Ralph was a man from Berkeley, stoutly Absent; Frederic from Paris, firmly Accurate. Neither could talk to rivers and lakes, neither understood the art of non-doing.

² During the end of the Dynasty, those in high positions will hurry about, never letting themselves or the people rest.