Like Smoke, Like Memory I

A figure stands at the edge of thaw and memory, wearing a white mask that seems neither fully human nor wholly creature—feline, faun, or spirit of the field. The duffel coat sways gently with the wind, like the breath of a forgotten season exhaling. The flattened hay on the ground speaks of winter's weight, not yet lifted, yet no longer oppressive. A tiny pond nearby reflects the pale sky, quiet and clear. In this moment, the character is both rooted and vanishing, solid yet dissolving, like the lines between what was and what remains. Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote, "The future enters into us, to transform itself in us, long before it happens." This photograph feels like that entry point — a stillness that carries the murmurs of change within it—a visual meditation on the nature of being, where the veil between presence and absence thins.