Modern man lives only on the earth and imagines no other world, except this one amplified in colour and intensity. We have become like angels, our only respite a day off. Each song is known by its first note, and each book has been made into a film. Go up to space, 100,000 feet, on hundred and twenty, lose count, the measure of night and day, only to realize how small you are. Or sink to the bottom of the vast Atlantic to note how a dark, blind fish hasn't changed its form or pathways for five million years. There are no more secrets and no more milestones; we'd blacken our faces for second spaces if we knew what we were talking about...
In a dream you see Ubo, in his 1970's navy blue three piece suit, his legs folded like an aristocrat, his 'tash thick and blooming...there he is, explaining something or the other to everyone at some grand annual family dinner. No one understands. Only when he tells it as a series of jokes is there any comprehension and by then everyone has realized it doesn't matter. You wake up, as always, with a glow of semi-understanding. Half your life is spent in this state: thinking you almost know what it's about...
If we knew what we were sick of we wouldn't be so unwell. God is 'dead' (please note the inverted commas, God) and Man isn't feeling too well either. Here it is, life thickening all around you, the dust settling on the high branches and the roots alike, in a great sweep of democratic vigour.
This lack of routine has aged you. The shadow work going on until one day you'll be caught unaware. Little r isn't a baby any more. "And how did you come to that conclusion?" I ask. "A fish living at the bottom of the sea doesn't know if he's old or young."
"Because I can draw a circle," she says.
Except the circle she draws is broken, open, the ends never actually meeting. There is something quite perfect about it.
'One day we'll say 'The sun ruled then'
Don't you remember how it shone on the twigs,
on the old as well as the wide-eyed young?
It knew how to make all things vivid
the second it alighted on them.
It would run like the racehorse.
How can we forget the time we had on earth?
....
We'd pick daffodils, collect pebbles, shells-
when we couldn't catch the smoke.
Now smoke is all we hold in our hands.
---Jules Supervielle.
In a dream you see Ubo, in his 1970's navy blue three piece suit, his legs folded like an aristocrat, his 'tash thick and blooming...there he is, explaining something or the other to everyone at some grand annual family dinner. No one understands. Only when he tells it as a series of jokes is there any comprehension and by then everyone has realized it doesn't matter. You wake up, as always, with a glow of semi-understanding. Half your life is spent in this state: thinking you almost know what it's about...
If we knew what we were sick of we wouldn't be so unwell. God is 'dead' (please note the inverted commas, God) and Man isn't feeling too well either. Here it is, life thickening all around you, the dust settling on the high branches and the roots alike, in a great sweep of democratic vigour.
This lack of routine has aged you. The shadow work going on until one day you'll be caught unaware. Little r isn't a baby any more. "And how did you come to that conclusion?" I ask. "A fish living at the bottom of the sea doesn't know if he's old or young."
"Because I can draw a circle," she says.
Except the circle she draws is broken, open, the ends never actually meeting. There is something quite perfect about it.
'One day we'll say 'The sun ruled then'
Don't you remember how it shone on the twigs,
on the old as well as the wide-eyed young?
It knew how to make all things vivid
the second it alighted on them.
It would run like the racehorse.
How can we forget the time we had on earth?
....
We'd pick daffodils, collect pebbles, shells-
when we couldn't catch the smoke.
Now smoke is all we hold in our hands.
---Jules Supervielle.
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