And now, b, repeat the rituals you have of beginning and ending...fish sandwiches on brown, grain mustard, latte in a paper cup. the same seat. the New Yorker. The whirl of nostalgia. A book of poetry, scribbling, Strauss (the Blue Danube, if you must know, since knowing is something you set great store by). A final glance back at Charing Cross road, your home away from home. Fading light on the street, in the trees, on the windowpanes. You knew this moment would come, remember seeing the printed date of departure when you got here and turning your face from it. You try to hold yourself together...
Wood holds together better
than sea or cloud or sand could by itself
much better than real sea or sand or cloud.
It chose that way to grow and not to move..
But roughly but adequately it can shelter
what is within.
"I grow", she said
but to divide your heart again.
Shelters. How precious they are to you. A star inside a rectangle, a recollection.
When I first saw you I was there, looking aimlessly through a dark window, looking at books; I stopped in my tracks, saw your face for the first time and those sad/funny eyes looking back at mine. What took you so long to find me? I smiled and quickly turned around, in case you were a dream. How was I to know that you were there in front of me all the time, a reflection of my very own soul?
into that world inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea
is now deep, and you love me.
I looked up. Clouds and time passed. And now you, a blue flower that doesn't exist, are like a blue light, an undisturbed, unbreathing flame in my heart, casting a blue shadow.
Life is a dream within a dream, or so it seems to me. Or maybe it is a series of dreams that I stumbled into and couldn't remember? When I am asleep you are awake.
You were beside me
and I saw you, like the snow,
asleep among appearances.
Time, with no help from us,
invents houses, streets, trees
and sleepy women
When you open your eyes
we'll walk, once more
among the hours and their inventions.
We'll walk among appearances
and bear witness to time and its conjugations
Perhaps we'll open the day's doors
And then we shall enter the unknown.
How strange is the time between us! You walk forwards and I backwards, into my life. The swami explained: this is the way it is in the end of days, this is how it is when the world ends, when no-one loves no-one.
---from E.B. and Octavio Paz
4 comments:
when no-one loves no-one
what a terrifying image! i choose to believe this will never happen.
not that i doubt our ability to find ever more creative ways to destroy the world...
a divided soul... how can we remain/be whole in a world that transplants us in so many ways - is something i've been thinking of a lot.
hello, b.
no-one loves no-one...I had such a different take on those words. Who is a no-one? Perhaps the soul growing inside the tree. Does anyone know that these things hide? These no-ones.
End times indeed. Is there such a thing as an ending? Or do we believe in time today?
Hello mani, nicky.
Er..actually, the words were just flung in there randomly (the last lines from one of my favourite songs-wicked game).
But after, I did think: it would have been better to say one loves no-one or no-one loves one..the words were, as you say, meant to be read quickly but then leave open the possibility of some other meaning.
Oh yes, I think the only thing we *do* believe in nowadays is that there is no redemption of time. Hans Jonas made this point some time ago: the modern era starts with an acute sense of death, contingency. So, when some people say: it's the end of the west they're right since it's *always* been the end.
Isn't that what Beckett's Endgame is about? How to tell a story of the end of stories?
Mani, what do you mean when you say 'transplant us'? I think I know what you mean.
How do we remain whole? I don't know. Once we've asked such a question aren't we already on the way to being divided? And I'm not sure if that's a totally bad thing: we are and like to be broken circles? ("the heart's endless desire to break")
hmm..and on that happy note! :-)
hello!
b.
the no-ones in trees - i like that so much better!
'transplant us' - i think i was referring to how difficult it is to put down/maintain some roots, some grounding, be it physical, emotional, spiritual.
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