Secret Thots for a Very Private Gentleman
tales, temptation, and titillation…
Once the realization is accepted that
even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue,
a wonderful living side by side can grow,
if they succeed in loving the distance between them
which makes it possible for each to see
the other whole against the sky.
— Rainer Maria Rilke —
Yes:
Let the wax raise
green statues, let the honey
drip in infinite tongues, let the ocean be a big comb
and the Earth a tunic of flowers, let the World
be a cascade, magnificent hair, unceasing
growth of Beedom.
– Pablo Neruda –
and under gilded blue
sweet shadow of what might yet be
damp ambition
none escape its serenade
so wrap around and sing along
send out the call
and the answer will be
– Lola Moi –
… Living, you stand under a waterfall. You leave the sleeping shore deliberately; you shed your dusty clothes, pick your barefoot way over the high, slippery rocks, hold your breath, choose your footing, and step into the waterfall. The hard water pelts your skull, bangs in bits on your shoulders and arms. The strong water dashes down beside you and you feel it along your calves and thighs rising roughly backup, up to the roiling surface, full of bubbles that slide up your skin or break on you at full speed. Can you breathe here? Here where the force is the greatest and only the strength of your neck holds the river out of your face. Yes, you can breathe even here. You could learn to live like this. And you can, if you concentrate, even look out at the peaceful far bank where you try to raise your arms. What a racket in your ears, what a scattershot pummeling!
It is time pounding at you, time. Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation’s short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit.”
– Annie Dillard –