A Gray Haze Over the Rice Fields

In class we talked about how the poem had sad parts and happy parts, like the title.  "Gray haze" contrast the happiness of "Rice fields," but I'm not sure one is bad and one is good.  A gray haze can be beautiful and I feel like we can't know for sure if rice fields is a positive "memory" or a negative one.  I think "such things claim that I am looking out in search of memory, not death" is that a lot of things he thinks about seems shallow as a memory but that they are actually deeper than that.  The way he goes on to say a more memories, but these ones seem more personal backs that up for me.  But he's not remembering this things in an anticipation for death, but that he sees a change coming.  He knows, as his life has changed before, it will change again.  From "a shadow freed from the past and from the future," I get that he remembers his life, not just for the memory, but for the experience, so he knows how to handle now.  He's not anticipating the future, just being aware of now and nows changes.  He seems ready for these changes too.