high windows*

my room is on the third floor of my building so this whole "high windows" concept is a bit of a stretch. still, i do like the view from my windows sometimes. above is not a window view but what i like to call "first sunlight." i had just moved into this room and after a week of bitterly cold weather, the sun came out. i spent the whole afternoon reading poetry in bed, enjoying the central heating and watching these squares of light make their slow way across my tiny closet of a room. these days, the weather is still bitterly cold (5 degrees C this morning!) but they've turned off the heating in both the dorm and our classroom. [insert string of expletives here.]

this was taken on that same sunny day (5th of april). i want to say that it's what i see when i wake up but that would be a huge lie. i had to look for a good angle from which to take the photo, a feat, given the tiny space that is my room. i ended up crouching at a height somewhere between the floor and edge of the bed. and it may sound strange to you in manila but in the three or so weeks i've been here in seoul, i've rarely seen the sky looking this blue. most of the time, it's grey or white, covered with a blanket of clouds.

last monday (17 april) was the coldest ever for us and we had to walk to school in freezing weather. as we were walking past the fountain of korea university, siege pointed up at the sky above the school. huge ominous clouds were gathered right above it, looking like they were beaten into submission by some Titan's gigantic hand. everything was eerily quiet and deathly cold. it felt like the end of the world. we wanted to take a photo but we didn't want to be late for class. we're such nerds here.

as i write this, it's 8.30 pm. i look out the window and see my reflected face staring back at me. in the distance, between the two buildings across this narrow street, i see the headlights of trucks flashing by as they speed over an elevated highway parallel to my street. and beyond that, there is a small red neon cross attached to the spire of a small church a neighborhood away. apart from the yellow glow of the streetlights below, it is the only bright object in my window, the only color out there in the cold.

* title stolen from Philip Larkin. despite the foul language at the beginning, the end of the poem comes close to how it feels when i pray. sort of an out of body experience--the same thing you feel when reading a really good book (recently, hwang ji-woo and wislawa szymborksa) or when you kiss someone you love for the very first time.

High Windows
Philip Larkin

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.