Between the Acts

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago
-a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment


---C. Milosz.

Somewhere in the heaven
Of lost futures
The lives we might have led
Have found their own fulfillment.
---D. Mahon.

Between her and me was the table, on the table a glass
And the space between her and me fractionalized itself infinitely
Had I overturned the table what would we have accomplished.
That act, a non-act, always no more than potential.
Like the attempt to penetrate water, wood, minerals..

But she too looked at me
And knew I was aware that no-one attains
Thus were affirmed humanness, tenderness.

---C. Milosz.

Between the acts is another act. And in our bewilderment who is to say which is more real? Summer light flickers on a mirror, the brightness of the day momentarily inheres in everything. Bees buzz in a brilliant white room, trying to make something out of nothing, and outside the sound of children's laughter can be heard. A rare perfection, a green thought. All the more tragic, all the more perfect, because it will vanish in the blinking of an eye.

Images form and disappear. Tender smiles and busyness. Like the lives we could have lived. We look at them with some unnameable awe: desire, regret, longing, remorse. This we could have had, had we known when to extend our hand and when to withdraw it. Only the seer understands this, only he finally sees what the hand has done. The rest grope in the dark, dimly aware that there are other hands pulling the strings. As Fate would have it...we shudder at these words.

The moment unravels, like a silver thread silently spiralling to the floor, like a broken piece of a painted vase that falls to the bottom of the fountain. And for a while it seems as if all is retrievable, what is broken can be fixed, and those who are lost can find home again. But had it been allowed to settle the world would not be the world, and you would not be you, I would not be me. The wheels turn, the gods manoeuvre. What deep shadows they cast!


But who was to know that one simple act would set us apart, when you had thought it would bring us together? The absurdity of it all! That a single moment can structure all others, give shape and direction to all other acts. How readily we would disown it. But it is in our blood now, working its unfathomable mystery on us, like a spell. And there is no road back, no atonement for what was done.

At least speak now, comfort me.

In your presence I feel light-hearted. I don't know what to say....