'I saw there was nothing to learn in the deep north...you get enlightenment where you are.'
---E. Bond.
We're out of time, you and me, kid. There's no two ways about it. The arctic is heating up at twice the global average. Scale down, reduce your thoughts to a minimum, to the essential, the necessary. We're old already. Read about polar bears in a book. A world of reduced possibilities and diversities, the angles to the universe folding. What will you remember? Not Socrates or any mathematical equations. There won't be so many questions, or answers. Books, libraries, abstract thought..all that will seem so quaint, mystifying. Why did we darken ourselves with words for so long?
Crow, no longer afraid to touch the earth lightly, settles down. Once again, time will move in large sweeping arcs, free from machines and human regularities. What shall I remember, precious one? My house, the tree, stars, grey clouds, morning snails and slugs? History in stones and wood and glass. Fires still burn, the red in the green...
We will search and search for our previous life, unable to reconcile ourselves with loss (much as we do now). Or that look on your face, the recognition of so much time passing deep in your eyes; London, still a dark memory in my heart, the bridge, gently arching over the Roding, where a black dog once licked little r's face. You will remember how once she was startled, asking: "Why did he do that? .."What language does a dog speak?"
Muslims don't like dogs (Celia once said). Muslims don't like anyone! But there will be no time for such considerations. Flags, as beautiful and meaningless as silver badges loosely pasted in a scrapbook; the dizzying awareness that what held us together was just a two-dime fiction, that Shylock had it right about the great equivalences: my flesh was your flesh after all.
'Whatever remains green is more deeply, richly green than it was before.' An intense stillness..the smallest sound is easily heard.'
---J.B.
Green spark, Montale, the district line, Bellow's green Venetian bottles, Tarkovsky's sad green of Solaris/Roding, Bonnington's lady-in-green, a "luxuriant green"...
what do you need? a tree a house to
gauge how great how small our human life
how great how small when you look up to the top of the tree
and get lost in the lush luxuriant green
how great how small when you think how short
your life compared with the life of trees
you need a tree you need a house
not all for yourself just a corner a roof
to sit to think to sleep to dream
to write to be silent to see your friend
the stars grass flower sky
—Friederike Mayröcker
...the green after the black in AnneMarie's German sufism. Bulleh...
She injured me, then turned away.
Compelled by love I dance, I dance.
She clothed me in robes of green and red.
---E. Bond.
We're out of time, you and me, kid. There's no two ways about it. The arctic is heating up at twice the global average. Scale down, reduce your thoughts to a minimum, to the essential, the necessary. We're old already. Read about polar bears in a book. A world of reduced possibilities and diversities, the angles to the universe folding. What will you remember? Not Socrates or any mathematical equations. There won't be so many questions, or answers. Books, libraries, abstract thought..all that will seem so quaint, mystifying. Why did we darken ourselves with words for so long?
Crow, no longer afraid to touch the earth lightly, settles down. Once again, time will move in large sweeping arcs, free from machines and human regularities. What shall I remember, precious one? My house, the tree, stars, grey clouds, morning snails and slugs? History in stones and wood and glass. Fires still burn, the red in the green...
We will search and search for our previous life, unable to reconcile ourselves with loss (much as we do now). Or that look on your face, the recognition of so much time passing deep in your eyes; London, still a dark memory in my heart, the bridge, gently arching over the Roding, where a black dog once licked little r's face. You will remember how once she was startled, asking: "Why did he do that? .."What language does a dog speak?"
Muslims don't like dogs (Celia once said). Muslims don't like anyone! But there will be no time for such considerations. Flags, as beautiful and meaningless as silver badges loosely pasted in a scrapbook; the dizzying awareness that what held us together was just a two-dime fiction, that Shylock had it right about the great equivalences: my flesh was your flesh after all.
'Whatever remains green is more deeply, richly green than it was before.' An intense stillness..the smallest sound is easily heard.'
---J.B.
Green spark, Montale, the district line, Bellow's green Venetian bottles, Tarkovsky's sad green of Solaris/Roding, Bonnington's lady-in-green, a "luxuriant green"...
what do you need? a tree a house to
gauge how great how small our human life
how great how small when you look up to the top of the tree
and get lost in the lush luxuriant green
how great how small when you think how short
your life compared with the life of trees
you need a tree you need a house
not all for yourself just a corner a roof
to sit to think to sleep to dream
to write to be silent to see your friend
the stars grass flower sky
—Friederike Mayröcker
...the green after the black in AnneMarie's German sufism. Bulleh...
She injured me, then turned away.
Compelled by love I dance, I dance.
She clothed me in robes of green and red.
2 comments:
What shall I remember, precious one? My house, the tree, stars, grey clouds, morning snails and slugs? History in stones and wood and glass. Fires still burn, the red in the green...
damn, why did my eyes get misty when i read this? (and on top of this i even come here to confess this publicly, instead of trying to make a joke to hide my sentimentality :-)
(i count on you to make that joke, actually, i trust you on that :-)
were you wearing your glasses?
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