The Absurd

Vietnam (via Tom), Gaza (am I allowed to mention that?) and Indonesia.

A society of monsters.

The sun shines, the rain continues to fall. The world doesn't shake, no capstones shift. No-one can understand or come to terms with a single death since time began. "A mystery". Anything more than one becomes an absurdity or a statistic.

A man with the saddest face imaginable, his eyes deep in their sockets, sweeps the brown leaves into a pile so they don't choke the drains with an effort that may be full of devotion or utterly meaningless. As I walk by him and think of his diligence I am reminded that it is only the possession of money that allows one to say: "fuck it!".

There are no more deserts...only the city.

The city is a false desert today where no-one finds no-one.

Infinite justice, Walker would say.

'Only the man who has fully attained his own spiritual identity can live without the need to kill, and without a doctrine that permits him to do so with a good conscience.'

---Merton.

Really? "Only"?

A man looks into the mirror and doesn't see himself. "After all, man is not as bad as all that, is he?"

_ _____ ___________ ________ _ _ ____ -______ _____ ___ _
-

A long moment passed. The old buildings and homes abandoned, density not so different from Siberia; our lives and loves thinning out...we live indoors and know no frontiers.

The ancient light, fragile and indestructible, without words-except the ones we tentatively give it-returns, unbidden and always will. Lives without a name, tilts the balance in our favour, even though it doesn't know 'south' or 'north'. The small arches we imagine and construct that allow it to filter, diffuse, fall and disperse. but even without us the trees have done that for a thousand years. 

We go on blindly, diminished, bracketed out, with fewer images-some kept in our wallets, close at hand- go on with our jarred and dimmed senses, the needle pointing true, not quite broken but on the edge of failing, you know, barely visible to most-what else could the case be? We go on, 

as the tundra swans
inspired by the tilt of the earth
get ready to leave
for the exact northern marshes 
where they were born.

(P.Dale Scott)


{Photo courtesy of Roxana}