Wednesday, March 28, 2012
the ancient sway of the world
Poetry and institutionalized religion are in a sense the flowing and the static forms of the same substance...
---Howard Nemerov.
There is no man that doth not discover in himself a peculiar form of his, a swaying form which restleth against..the institution, and against the tempest of passions, which are contrary to him.
---Montaigne.
~~~
You look at the disprin slowly dissolving, the particles falling apart, swirling around in a small vortex, which always makes you think of lost worlds. Gradually your hand becomes unclenched, your tongue less tongue-tied; something in you loosens, your face finds its true form; you move your tongue without thinking (to be conscious of one's body is a terrible state to be in). You speak no words, except in your mind, and as you do so you imagine your face like a boyish version of Ubo. That thought brings peace to your mind, helping your wooden thoughts creak a bit more...
~~~
An ultra sound. This is cold. And this is gel, said the matter-of-fact doctor. I think she spent a bit too long rubbing it over my face-the old fox! Oh well, lucky her! It was utterly fascinating watching the screen, a bit like a weather map, searching out some intense electrical charges, for some signs of activity. The screen blinked and gave a frozen picture of randomized arrows and disjointed lines. And in a flash red and blue dots, lines, fragments show up, enclosed beautifully in a yellow square against the humdrum blankness and greyness of what looks like a night sky to an untrained mind.
Some technical language, which you don't understand-not that you're much better with non-technical stuff...
~~~
Despite the growth of fanaticism, the narrowing down of the mind, you're still drawn to religion (or at least parts of it). And why not? Religion and life are full of colour; thought, on the other hand, is often far too grey. The world, despite all the materialism and fake piety will always leave open other possibilities to us, will always sway away from the one-sided rigidities and loosen us into the many directions of trust, unknowingness and gratitude.
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5 comments:
Luminous insight:
"The world, despite all the materialism and fake piety will always leave open other possibilities to us, will always sway away from the one-sided rigidities and loosen us into the many directions of trust, unknowingness and gratitude."...
You know, B, we are having parallel experiences here, sort of medical encounters of the n-th grade. Because this is what I wrote to a very good friend of mine last night (hope its sous-chefic left-handedness amuses):
[Liquid pain(t)]
When the pain inside seeps into each cell of your body, when you revel into it and welcome it as one welcomes new dawns and summer morning sunshine, there's no evasion anymore. All you hope is death will be smooth and sudden; and somewhat decorous. Never has pain been more befitting, more soothing more custom-tailored to clothe your body to its needs of curvy warmth and tenderness. " Does it feel tender? " the physician asks gently pressing down along your left . " Hmm… yeah… not my concept of tenderness, but yes, some sort of tenderness nevertheless. " How tender on a scale from 1to ten? " she probes again with relentless zest. "Ten", I say reluctantly "the ten of tenderness ". "We'll give you something that will male it less ", she lightens up in white confidence. Except I secretly hope this pain-not the weakness- just the pain, the sharp needly crampiness will last for a while as the single most accurate expression of my mind.
Pain: the four-letter word that's become my unhoped-for friend. Whoever said hope never dies and reason knows no end, was right. There's always pain as luminous ardent hope to make it somewhere else, to flow into your whole body, reason's means to no end. How your mind works when your body is fully wrapped in pain is still a source of wonder to you; but it does. It sorts, it splits, it orders, it labels pain into blue files of past perfect turned present sour & future sour-sweet. You're older- and orderly, too- sit at the desk, black-ink fountain pen in right hand, rolodex of blue notes inside you, on the left; your thinly graceful fingers reluctantly perusing, yet leaving their red trace: a thin red line all over, straight, entangled, circling intertwined, then splotches of oozing red like freshly squeezed pomegranate pulp on each blue note card.
And despite all pain there is the aching, too. The missing never ceases, never lets go, even when the missing becomes diffuse, milky and supine. Missing beats pain even when missing doesn't trigger pain. The intolerable missing of being…with…for…around…evermore.
>>>> This is what meant into my Bechamel, last evening, kept dictating while whisking the milk, getting there to the perfect roux. Gotta run...lunch's upon us.
Best regards. A
gosh, u really write very well, A.
b.
will respond in a proper way later. off to rest now and skim through some ken irby.
keep well.
B, thanks. you're awfully kind. Now, could you be honest, too? :)
Hope you rested, son! And did some reading too (*She puts on her round golden-rimmed glasses & fixes her white-wooly bun precisely to the level of her neckline. Then she goes on knitting. )
oh, get out of here, A! :-) Really, you *do* write well. and the little nuggets of insight (okay, okay, that was a shoddy attempt at a pun) into the culinary world would be really interesting to a lot of people. just my tuppence worth.
knitting, what's that ma? sounds so, I dunno, 19th century! :-)
Precisely B! Boy, you're good! Or, am I? Which one? :) Anyway, yes, 19c, before everything got truly spoiled in love & squalor. Now, be thankful, I didn't conjure up the image of a good ol' Roman matron!
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