write my diary
by street-light, because it’s better that way; I may not have to look too closely
at my handwriting, yet I can feel it, all around and on me
like a garment or a sheet, and this too seems like a good idea. Well, doesn’t it?
It does. But remember, one isn’t obliged to love everything
and everybody, though one ought to try. One way is to accept the face they
present to you, but on consignment. Then you may find yourself falling in love
with the lie, sinister but endearing, they fabricated to win acceptance
for themselves as beings that are crisp and airy, with an un-self-conscious note of rightness
or purpose that just fits, and only later take up the guilt behind the façade
in the close, humid rooms of whatever goes down in their struggle (or hundreds
of struggles) against fate, and perhaps buy that too someday
when their manners are out of the way. I have obtained gratifying results in both instances
but I know enough not to insist, to keep sifting a mountain of detritus
indefinitely in search of tiny yellow blades of grass. Enough
is surely enough, in spite of what religion teaches us. I’m happy to be back with others
at the fairgrounds, without disparaging them too much, and when someone asks me
what I think of him or her, reply without false naïveté that I really love them
very much, but it might be time to take other factors into account, my own
well-being, for example, and how far along the path to survival my unselfish
instincts have moved me. Usually it’s both farther and not as far as we imagine,
i.e., taking a wrong turning and then after a fretful period emerging in some nice
place we didn’t know existed, and would never have found without being misled
by the distracted look in someone’s eyes. It’s mostly green then; the waves are peaceful;
rabbits hop here and there. And the landscape you saw from afar, from the tower,
really is miniature, it wasn’t the laws of perspective that made it seem so,
but for now one must forgo it in the interests of finding an open, habitable space,
which isn’t going to be easy. In fact it’s the big problem one was being led
up to all along under the guise of being obliged to look out for oneself
and others: the place isn’t hospitable, though it can support itself and one or two
others, but really it would be best to start all over again from the beginning
and find some really decent area that reflects a commitment to oneself.
But where? In a bubble under the surface of the ocean? Isn’t it all going to be a fiction
anyway, and if so, what does it matter where we decide to settle down?
III
That was the first time you washed your hands,
and how monumental it seems now. Those days the wind blew only from one quarter;
one was forced to make snap judgments, though the norms unfolded naturally enough,
constructing themselves, and it wasn’t until you found yourself inside a huge pen
or panopticon that you realized the story had disappeared like water into desert sand,
although it still continued. I guess that was the time I understood enough
to seize one of the roles and make it mine, and knew what I heard myself saying,
but not whose yellow hair it was. Mélisande? Oh, I’d
come before to let you in, and saw only a chipmunk, and so…But now it’s nice
to sing along, and read the newspapers together, and try on funny hats: only
be aware that at daybreak there must be no trace of you, or the cock might not crow
and there’d be hell to pay. Besides, you wouldn’t wish it
even if we were together, as someday we may be. I say “someday”
for the sound of it, like a drop of water landing, but I also meant it, but now I’m
standing just outside unafraid, listening. So much is wrapped in soot,
that now I’m no longer blind
and can denounce any aggressor, but I won’t, because I’m afraid to, and besides,
what if the attic door slammed shut? Much remains unknown
in these calm countries. A bridge
by street-light, because it’s better that way; I may not have to look too closely
at my handwriting, yet I can feel it, all around and on me
like a garment or a sheet, and this too seems like a good idea. Well, doesn’t it?
It does. But remember, one isn’t obliged to love everything
and everybody, though one ought to try. One way is to accept the face they
present to you, but on consignment. Then you may find yourself falling in love
with the lie, sinister but endearing, they fabricated to win acceptance
for themselves as beings that are crisp and airy, with an un-self-conscious note of rightness
or purpose that just fits, and only later take up the guilt behind the façade
in the close, humid rooms of whatever goes down in their struggle (or hundreds
of struggles) against fate, and perhaps buy that too someday
when their manners are out of the way. I have obtained gratifying results in both instances
but I know enough not to insist, to keep sifting a mountain of detritus
indefinitely in search of tiny yellow blades of grass. Enough
is surely enough, in spite of what religion teaches us. I’m happy to be back with others
at the fairgrounds, without disparaging them too much, and when someone asks me
what I think of him or her, reply without false naïveté that I really love them
very much, but it might be time to take other factors into account, my own
well-being, for example, and how far along the path to survival my unselfish
instincts have moved me. Usually it’s both farther and not as far as we imagine,
i.e., taking a wrong turning and then after a fretful period emerging in some nice
place we didn’t know existed, and would never have found without being misled
by the distracted look in someone’s eyes. It’s mostly green then; the waves are peaceful;
rabbits hop here and there. And the landscape you saw from afar, from the tower,
really is miniature, it wasn’t the laws of perspective that made it seem so,
but for now one must forgo it in the interests of finding an open, habitable space,
which isn’t going to be easy. In fact it’s the big problem one was being led
up to all along under the guise of being obliged to look out for oneself
and others: the place isn’t hospitable, though it can support itself and one or two
others, but really it would be best to start all over again from the beginning
and find some really decent area that reflects a commitment to oneself.
But where? In a bubble under the surface of the ocean? Isn’t it all going to be a fiction
anyway, and if so, what does it matter where we decide to settle down?
III
That was the first time you washed your hands,
and how monumental it seems now. Those days the wind blew only from one quarter;
one was forced to make snap judgments, though the norms unfolded naturally enough,
constructing themselves, and it wasn’t until you found yourself inside a huge pen
or panopticon that you realized the story had disappeared like water into desert sand,
although it still continued. I guess that was the time I understood enough
to seize one of the roles and make it mine, and knew what I heard myself saying,
but not whose yellow hair it was. Mélisande? Oh, I’d
come before to let you in, and saw only a chipmunk, and so…But now it’s nice
to sing along, and read the newspapers together, and try on funny hats: only
be aware that at daybreak there must be no trace of you, or the cock might not crow
and there’d be hell to pay. Besides, you wouldn’t wish it
even if we were together, as someday we may be. I say “someday”
for the sound of it, like a drop of water landing, but I also meant it, but now I’m
standing just outside unafraid, listening. So much is wrapped in soot,
that now I’m no longer blind
and can denounce any aggressor, but I won’t, because I’m afraid to, and besides,
what if the attic door slammed shut? Much remains unknown
in these calm countries. A bridge
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