Sky and Cloud
They ask us to consider how we define boundaries. There is something ‘democratic’ about clouds: they float over borders, ignore walls, belong to no one. Yet, at the same time, they are deeply political—connected to climate, industry, and our ever-shifting relationship with nature.
And yet they remain a symbol of life. Of rebirth. Of origin. It is our shared territory: a mental expanse, a body. Like the sky—its substance, a gathering of particles. Perhaps the final territory we might all share, in the face of all that divides us.
In a world obsessed with certainty and permanence, clouds suggest another way of being—fluid, adaptive, momentary.
Xavier Verhoest
The Earth is closing on us pushing us through the last passage and we tear off our limbs to pass through.
The Earth is squeezing us.
I wish we were its wheat so we could die and live again.
I wish the Earth was our mother so she’d be kind to us.
I wish we were pictures on the rocks for our dreams to carry as mirrors.
We saw the faces of those who will throw our children out of the window of this last space.
Our star will hang up mirrors.
Where should we go after the last frontiers?
Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air?
We will write our names with scarlet steam.
We will cut off the hand of the song to be finished by our flesh.
We will die here, here in the last passage.
Here and here our blood will plant its olive tree.
Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)