Chen-ou Liu

The Distance between Breathing In and Breathing Out

For Samuel Beckett and Matsuo Basho

Out of one dream the same dream is reborn.

I am hand-picked by the director to sit front row center for the play, Breath. The play has no actors, just a stage full of rubbish. It begins with a brief, faint cry, then the amplified sound of a human breath accompanied by an increase and decrease in the intensity of the light, followed by another faint cry as the lights fade and the curtain falls.

you're my dreaming heart
a butterfly darts in and out
of my shadow