The Dying Animal

On that green evening when our death begins,
Just what is was, is hardly satisfying,
Since it applied only to one man once,
And that man dying.
---Larkin.

You've changed.

What did you expect?

But you're not the same person I once knew?

True. Today the skies are grey, yesterday they weren't. And who knows of tomorrow?

I'm not sure I know you any more.

Same here!

Does the past, then, not count for anything?

Of course it does, but it does more than count: it lives. We are undetermined animals, remember?


We seek a pattern. Who is it amongst us who hasn't searched to make sense of it all, to put one's name on the things and people that have streamed in from the future to meet us? Isn't there something in us that intuits unity, that is besotted by the origin, the symbol of order in that first time, first space, something fundamental that recoils at the possibility of discontinuity? Anarchy is only a falling away from the order of the sun, a black spot. Essence precedes existence.

But sometimes we also want the heart to break; sometimes we want nothing more than to break free, to fall, to fly. We want what cannot be achieved-except by grace: to be a broken circle.

Why bring up the ancient quarrel again? Do we find our name or make a name for ourself?

But we are not mind alone. Nor is our mind a mere reflection of a Parmenedian universe, something fixed, static, timeless. Kunfayakun is not over! Still the world trembles, still the mountains flow. Capstones shift.

I am dying. You, like the earth, are dying too. Even if I say we is it not true that we die alone? What solace is there to be had? Philosophy won't take you there. Nor will art or science. We live amongst shadows. But at least we can say not the dying animal but a dying animal, dazzlingly unique in all her distinctiveness, truly aware of all the colours: black, blue, green....