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| From: | ![[info]](http://klab.lv/img/userinfo.gif) maya |
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| Date: |
26. Jūlijs 2018 - 17:59 |
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With all its eyes the nat ural world looks out
into the Open. Only our eyes are turned
back ward, and sur round plant, an i mal, child
like traps, as they emerge into their free dom.
We know what is re ally out there only from
the an i mal’s gaze; for we take the very young
child and force it around, so that it sees
ob jects – not the Open, which is so
deep in an i mals’ faces. Free from death.
We, only, can see death; the free an i mal
has its de cline in back of it, for ever,
and God in front, and when it moves, it moves
al ready in eter nity, like a foun tain.
Never, not for a sin gle day, do we have
be fore us that pure space into which flow ers
end lessly open. Al ways there is World
and never Nowhere with out the No: that pure
un sep a rated el e ment which one breathes
with out de sire and end lessly knows. A child
may wan der there for hours, through the time less
still ness, may get lost in it and be
shaken back. Or some one dies and is it.
For, near ing death, one doesn’t see death; but stares
be yond, per haps with an an i mal’s vast gaze.
Lovers, if the beloved were not there
block ing the view, are close to it, and mar vel…
As if by some mis take, it opens for them
be hind each other… but nei ther can move past
the other, and it changes back to World.
For ever turned to ward ob jects, we see in them
the mere re flec tion of the realm of free dom,
which we have dimmed. Or when some an i mal
mutely, serenely, looks us through and through.
That is what fate means: to be op po site,
to be op po site and noth ing else, for ever.
If the an i mal mov ing to ward us so se curely
in a dif fer ent di rec tion had our kind of
con scious ness–, it would wrench us around and drag us
along its path. But it feels its life as bound less,
un fath omable, and with out re gard
to its own con di tion: pure, like its out ward gaze.
And where we see the fu ture, it sees all time
and it self within all time, for ever healed.
Yet in the alert, warm an i mal there lies
the pain and bur den of an enor mous sad ness.
For it too feels the pres ence of what often
over whelms us: a mem ory, as if
the el e ment we keep press ing to ward was once
more in ti mate, more true, and our com mu nion
in fi nitely ten der. Here all is dis tance;
there it was breath. After that first home,
the sec ond seems am bigu ous and drafty.
Oh bliss of the tiny crea ture which re mains
for ever in side the womb that was its shel ter;
joy of the gnat which, still within, leaps up
even at its mar riage: for every thing is womb.
And look at the half-as sur ance of the bird,
which knows both inner and outer, from its source,
as if it were the soul of an Etr uscan,
flown out of a dead man re ceived in side a space,
but with his re clin ing image as the lid.
And how be wil dered is any womb-born crea ture
that has to fly. As if ter ri fied and flee ing
from it self, it zigzags through the air, the way
a crack runs through a teacup.
So the bat quiv ers across the porce lain of evening.
And we: spec ta tors, al ways, every where,
turned to ward the world of ob jects, never out ward.
It fills us. We arrange it. It breaks down.
We re arrange it, then break down our selves.
Who has twisted us around like this, so that
no mat ter what we do, we are in the pos ture
of some one going away? Just as, upon
the far thest hill, which shows him his whole val ley
one last time, he turns, stops, lingers–,
so we live here, for ever tak ing leave.
