I can’t look away from...
...the flames that, breathless in their incessant breathing, weave themselves through the cloth of darkness.
...a swarm of birds forming an airborne drop of mercury, bound by the invisible thread of natural laws.
...the sway of tall grasses, whose shadows betray the frolics of wind.
...motes of dust luring light off its straight paths.
...stream water fraying into a thousand whirls, whitening with air.
...headlights on the highway, weaving a luminous cord around the throat of the nightscape.
...photons glinting with California gold in her blond hair—I try to sift them through my fingers.

A tongue of flame, a lone bird, a blade of grass, a speck, a ripple, two forlorn headlights, a strand of hair—there is less hypnotic beauty in them.
Is the singular simply easier to look away from?

I can’t look away from...
...a raindrop forming on the edge of a leaf during a downpour, beneath the tree where I take shelter. The droplet resists falling, held by the forces of adhesion and cohesion. Gravity stretches it into an inverted scepter. It clings by a watery filament—until finally, it lets go. Another forms just behind it.
I can’t look away...

Under another tree, I can't look away from an autumn leaf drifting slowly to the ground. Just a glimpse ago, it was still resisting gravity with the molecular forces of plant tissues. Now it glides through the air in a crooked stitch. It flirts with the wind. And as my eyes follow it to the ground, I immediately spot another— one whose molecular hold has also let go.

And there are people I cannot help but behold—endlessly. Always singular, unique in the fleeting moments they inhabit. An unfathomable force resides in them, like gravity—one that pulls the notes of music and the words of verses away from me, like raindrops drawn from storm clouds, like leaves torn from branches in fall’s embrace. The Flame People.

I have a friend—a musician—with a delicate heart and profound eyes. Long ago, he told me to always surrender to the force of such people. He is a good friend. And a long time ago, I listened.