Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
23/08/2013
23/05/2013
03/02/2013
02/02/2013
10/01/2013
30/11/2012
13/11/2012
09/11/2012
20/08/2012
on impending loss, foretold
[...] How could I turn and say: but this is him.
How could I say: he bounded when he walked.
How could I say: when he came home at night,
A gust of snowy air around his coat,
I drew him closer, holding his lapels;
He caught me by the wrists and closed his eyes.
How could I say I tried to memorize
The truthful face, his smile a truthful blaze
Untrammeled still. I tried to learn by heart
The light-brouwn gaze: unguarded chrysolite
From such another world that heaven made.
Left iris, with a comet-fleck of gold.
How could I memorize his gentle ways.
The way he mingled friendliness with passion,
Plain dealing, open-handed, unafraid.
The swift, reflexive generosity.
His striking conversation, magic ease
In seeking what the other could, then more,
In understanding, warmly understood;
A quest for truth but not certainty.
And the integrity I idolized:
Another's mystery never trifled with.
No one was belittled in those eyes.
[...]
I found a phone booth, place to bawl unheard,
And sank beneath its automatic light.
The phone book hanging from a broken chain -
I drew it to my lap, a sprawling weight
Of paper pulp from long-forgotten trees
Snuffed-out and boiled down and pressed in sheets
Of ashen paper, faintly blue and gray,
A book unreadable and authorless,
A mystical directory of the living,
Each page a random sample of Creation
And changing version of the Book of Life;
I ran my glove over the listings: throngs;
And found his name, still listed with the living,
Whose stories vanish, leaving only names
Recycled and reused. This faring on
And on, O mendicants. And overheard.
A page that can't be turned. He can't survive.
But let him live. My gloves pressing my eyes,
A thousand stars rotating inwardly
A millimeter past the streamered dark,
And nameless comet-phosphenes streking by.
With an alter, death. Without a place.
[...]
Gjertud Schnackenberg, from 'Venus Velvet no. 2,' in Heavenly Questions
How could I say: he bounded when he walked.
How could I say: when he came home at night,
A gust of snowy air around his coat,
I drew him closer, holding his lapels;
He caught me by the wrists and closed his eyes.
How could I say I tried to memorize
The truthful face, his smile a truthful blaze
Untrammeled still. I tried to learn by heart
The light-brouwn gaze: unguarded chrysolite
From such another world that heaven made.
Left iris, with a comet-fleck of gold.
How could I memorize his gentle ways.
The way he mingled friendliness with passion,
Plain dealing, open-handed, unafraid.
The swift, reflexive generosity.
His striking conversation, magic ease
In seeking what the other could, then more,
In understanding, warmly understood;
A quest for truth but not certainty.
And the integrity I idolized:
Another's mystery never trifled with.
No one was belittled in those eyes.
[...]
I found a phone booth, place to bawl unheard,
And sank beneath its automatic light.
The phone book hanging from a broken chain -
I drew it to my lap, a sprawling weight
Of paper pulp from long-forgotten trees
Snuffed-out and boiled down and pressed in sheets
Of ashen paper, faintly blue and gray,
A book unreadable and authorless,
A mystical directory of the living,
Each page a random sample of Creation
And changing version of the Book of Life;
I ran my glove over the listings: throngs;
And found his name, still listed with the living,
Whose stories vanish, leaving only names
Recycled and reused. This faring on
And on, O mendicants. And overheard.
A page that can't be turned. He can't survive.
But let him live. My gloves pressing my eyes,
A thousand stars rotating inwardly
A millimeter past the streamered dark,
And nameless comet-phosphenes streking by.
With an alter, death. Without a place.
[...]
Gjertud Schnackenberg, from 'Venus Velvet no. 2,' in Heavenly Questions
24/06/2012
18/06/2012
11/05/2012
08/05/2012
upheavals of thought
'One misses in a primitive way what held one and gave one comfort: even when one fastens on particular details, [...] they are complex eudaimonistic symbols of comfort and support. This suggests that it is more because the need for comfort and support fades that the sensory memory fades, rather than that the memory simply fades out on its own, causing thereby a diminution in the need for comfort and support [...]
Martha Nussbaum, 'Upheavals of Thought'
08/02/2012
16/01/2012
09/01/2012
Other people's things
Of the passions with which the mind of man is agitated, it may be observed, that they naturally hasten towards their own extinction, by inciting and quickening the attainment of their objects. Thus fear urges our flight and desire animates our progress; and if there are some which perhaps may be indulged till they outgrow the good appropriated to their satisfaction, as it is frequently observed of avarice and ambition, yet their immediate tendency is to some means of happiness really existing, and generally within the prospect . . . . But for sorrow there is no remedy provided by nature; it is often occasioned by accidents irreparable, and dwells on objects that have lost or changed their existence; it requires what it cannot hope, that the laws of the universe should be repealed; that the dead should return, or the past should be recalled.
04/01/2012
28/12/2011
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