The decline and fall

 

T

Ec-stasy: to stand outside of oneself. The centre doesn't hold; let it go, let it go. This time, right here. Now. 

After the flood

 

The same. The same. then once, in a flash, fresh ground,... black, grey, green, and blue water, stone, grass and sky and each unique set stone! --R.Lowell Not things but a web of connections, "indirect words, which constantly efface themselves in a complementary silence" (on Monet).

~~~

On how silence works:

"I find the here-and-now of vital [but not ultimate] importance. It’s important because it is ephemeral; this moment is here and gone. How I respond to it is the vital question. Do I respond to it from my deepest values? That’s the reality of my faith."

~

On consolation:

Consolation without faith, salvation, grace? İf this is part two of The Needs of Strangers then I'm looking forward to it! Can it, must it, now only come through art, music and texts? Not touching but to be touched. Can there ever be a complete acceptance of pure randomness if we are, in reality, sense-making creatures always searching for meaning?

Perhaps we humans have wanted God most as witness to acts of choice made in solitude. Acts of memory,of sacrifice. --Denise Levertov

Are secular forms of redemption/hope destined to fail- or worse, turn into nightmares? Capitalist modernity's freedom from nature brings forth and perhaps always contained the seeds of climate catastrophe; Marxist utopia results in hopeless architectural brutalism and hell on earth. The structure of redemption narratives (just barely) remains but the substance seems hollowed out.

 

K

We want the mark of time, that streak, wound/gash; the dazzling riddled light held in the loved one's gaze-for a moment, the deep sense of ease at seeing the first step, spring, calendars. The point of intersection, a cross, a turning point, the solstice of the heart. The words not spoken when there was time now recalled, the photograph kept in a deep inner pocket, faith under the left nipple, the worn- down shoes in winter, the clocks in your house all pointing sadly to different hours, the lighting of the fires in the darkness of the morning with darkened hands. The learned skill of forgetting, the amazement that things continue. God in the high, eastern windows, His light reaching us-somehow-marking out time for you, for me.

 

Ich ruf zu Dir Herr, Jesu Christ, BWV 639, J. S. Bach from Lalentituddelosgramófonos on Vimeo.

Time will make you..or it won't. You find yourself in fallen, failing light. All the mystery is in the here and now. This cloth, woven from green and red, gold and green. Each thing has its season. And now is winter. 

Floating Light

 

Promises for C

 

K

We throw our arms wide with a gesture of religion to the universe; we close them around a person.. -- Frost.

When the news arrived you closed the books, collected poems- Irby, Ceravolo. Years pass,mid-morning silence in each room now, the winter mind stalls, all the mirrors cold like a shroud. But amidst the words,a photo & "A picture of everyone i love passes thru me." --Ceravolo.

"Never submit to the flow of time..Deal only with those difficulties that actually confront you." --S.Weil

..scarcely holding yourself up on the bank of the here & now.. connected to fixities subtleties.. January shines now & the glory of January enfolds you in itself-- --Zanzotto.