(with apologies to those who may find this image somewhat sacrilegious)
Much of what we know is secondhand, derivative. Much of what we comprehend is lovingly passed down to us, from one hand to the other, and taken on trust. The first hand groped in the evening dark for something strange. Not a shape or form, nor a particular face either.
One hand reaches out for the stars; the other jots thoughts down and in doing so creates the human world. The hand tries to grasp what it's all about: the tree of knowledge. But the first hand is also a registering of a presence, as in the first cave paintings. This is me. I was here. It is more than this. The wall is the membrane that divides worlds, it is a veil that separates the beloved.
And on that first cold night the first hand searched and searched and it was the search itself that made it utterly mysterious, wholly unforeseeable; and he finally understood that what he was looking for all this time came from the tree of life; it was nothing else but the simple hand of another human being.
5 comments:
it's not directly related, or maybe it is, I just want to give you this beautiful line, I couldn't decide which one to choose for my hand-berry post and finally the other won. I think you might like it :-)
"Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup". wendell berry
Hmm. don't know about *picking* them. I'm all for eating them, though! :)
Your line reminds me a bit of a wonderful scene from the seventh seal where he just sits down in the pale evening light and has strawberries and milk. As if that's it. That's what it's all about.
Take care,
b.
lazy you! what is wrong with picking them? although I have to confess that I was put off by that part with "rise at dawn" :-)
I ate strawberries today!
Keep well and have a wonderful weekend, R.
Er..dunno! I did pick blackberries once but all I remember was a lot of stingy nettles. My sister, though, does like to do so (or at least used to when she was a socialist!)
Best to leave the gathering to the women.
[just teasing you, of course :) ]
'And there were fruits we picked by the wayside. And they were bitter.'
Andé Gide.
(Can't resist adding that one,b! This is a message from Brighton, where, believe me, there are no 'wayside fruits', bitter or otherwise. Shall be returning home, via the British Library and Euston on Monday and will write - promise.)
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