Nowhere near

There is nowhere near enough time or space in my heart to explain what I'm feeling. There is no forever, just this brief, momentary glimpse, temporarily kept in the iron grid of our memories and hopes. There is autumn, always autumn, and we carry it with us. There are times when we recognize, must..there is no way of saying, no way of understanding. Poetry is a conceit, the rest so much childish games. 

...

There is an apple tree but the fruit too sweet, or too bitter to eat. Much of it falls to the ground, frost-starred. We play cricket together, re-living our childhood for a short while, but already there is a chill in the air and an uninvited guest at the door...

We laugh, laugh heartily. That was our mistake. Not that it matters, either way.  Draw yourself down to some fundamental simplicity or open yourself up.The nowhere, near, crosses our path.

~~~

Thank you for your comment, Roxana. I will try and respond here. When Berger writes:

"The boon of language is that potentially it is complete, it has the potentially of holding with words the totality of human experience-everything that has occurred and everything that may occur. It even allows space for the unspeakable. In this sense one can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot b hostile to man."

I'm sceptical.

First off, I don't have many fixed views and I think it's important to change or at least think again with time.

But I still think that for large swathes of experience words are adequate to their task-or the gap between the word and the thing itself is not something to fret about. We may always see through a dark glassly. I think there is a time to accept ourselves as we are-and more importantly, to accept others as there are. There is a danger, in my opinion, of "perfection" (assuming words or people must be a perfect match, must capture everything). The thing-in-itself..what is that? I think there is, with me, always a "muslim sensibility" that not everything can or should be 'named' as well a sort of aniconic perspective which always makes one cautious of mistaking the image for reality.

I think I've also written a lot about trust/tawakuul, about how difficult it is to live with those gaps in our understanding, and with our own finitude. The gaps in which we say "if" or "what if". There will always be a longing for elsewhere, for something that doesn't fade and fall. I think our love and loves are divided that way. This, to me, also seems like an essential part of human experience (Mir: the song of joy and sorrow is always with us). And Denise: the world is never with us enough..but also sometimes it is too much with us.

When it comes to certain experiences, events, I think words are inadequate. In front of a great work of art or music one is moved, speechless In extreme sadness, grief, and in disasters or catastrophes words too seem a pale shadow (though images and music may get closer).  I did write "there are times..." and it is sometimes a terrible necessity.

All of this does sound terribly confused. There is a proper love of the world and a proper desire to escape from it, I guess (which suggests there are improper forms). I think we will always look through the dark windows, back on our lives and 'out there', too. What we see may be blurred and indistinct but the longing for clarity is true. I think we will always be torn and there will always be this cross, which cannot be described.