A Certain Light

In a certain light we are not who we are. All that was false falls away. In that second space we see behind appearance, the time that generates time, the gaze before the gaze. Beyond the stones there is another reality, other orders of being. Sometimes, as in a dream, we are made aware of them co-existing with our own familiar way of seeing the world and we catch a glimpse of these other realms; we discern our name, reclaim the acts that are ours, and think to ourselves: this is home, our true reality, all else is shadow.

-

-

Anything can happen.

Those overlooked regarded.

Ground gives.

The Heaven's weight

Lifts up off Atlas.

Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.

---Seamus Heaney

-

-

Maybe this other reality is locked into stone, inheres deep in the rock, like a black bird, captive but taking flight; maybe it is our gaze that has turned the world to stone, brought about its silence, when everything is flowing? The bird dreams of a star, catches its own reflection and now waits, age upon age, to be released...

-

-

'Looking close in the evil mirror Crow saw

Mistings of civilisation...

Stone likewise. A pebble is imprisoned

Like nothing in the Universe.

Created for black sleep. Or growing

Conscious of the sun's red spot occasionally,

Then dreaming it is the foetus of God.'

---Ted Hughes.

Where are you now? Where are any of us these days? These days, when a whole afternoon can slip by, as light and insignificant as a cloud; the hours fall on your lap...books, and words, and notes are rearranged, clothes folded and put away-as if any of that makes a difference. An empty, clear glass on your table, perfectly empty, and a silver spoon next to it, pointing to it in adoration, gleaming with an unknown purity, truth. Things are in order here, but what of it. Where am I?

~~~

Darling R wants to see the world from every possible angle and sleeps, in her own distinctive way, at a tangent to others. "One must create one's own space in the world," she says, pretending to frown. "Or at least find it"

I think you're going to be a great actress, I comment, trying to tease the little one.

"What? Better than you?!"

R, you cheeky monkey, don't get me started...

~~

The hours fall, and fall. Her eyes fill up with mischief. She folds her arms on the dark failings, and laughs, then opens and closes her hand, as if it was a flash. She can say the word "hippo". Perhaps that's all there is to it, even though 'the word is too frivolous in the English language' (Gunter Eich)