"wondering what they meant, wondering what we had been" These lines fit perfect with the photograph. I found myself wondering what this place had been. It looks so deserted and abandoned. Perfect pairing of picture and poem!
Meg: Thank you. It is a beautiful picture, yes, and I am happy, more than happy, if I can offer some echo of its inconsolable vision, that lament for the fading into time....
I love this constant theme in your poems of the physicality of language, words. Dreamy and mysterious, I love the intimacy and child-like fascination of 'we turned the words in our fingers'. Both poem and picture are perfect examples of that Merwin quote: "a theme that runs through all poetry and language is a feeling of loss".
Only where there is language is there world. --Martin Heidegger
-----
The word that fits would mime the genesis. --Michel Deguy
-----
Translate
Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes.
... that a whole world of lament arose, in which
all nature reappeared: forest and valley,
road and village, field and stream and animal;
and that around this lament-world, even as
around the other earth, a sun revolved
and a silent, star-filled heaven, a lament-
heaven, with its own, disfigured stars ...
Ein Klage-Himmel, "a lament-heaven," from Rilke's "Orpheus. Eurydike. Hermes." Poetry's post-rupture, post-lapsus, post-death-of-Eurydice dream of recreating that primal world -- Eden, childhood, Orpheus's singing -- where word and thing were one.
8 comments:
"What we had been", and what we hope to be again...
Anne
"wondering what they meant,
wondering what we had been"
These lines fit perfect with the photograph. I found myself wondering what this place had been. It looks so deserted and abandoned. Perfect pairing of picture and poem!
Anne: Perhaps we can still hope ... do we still have that?
Meg: Thank you. It is a beautiful picture, yes, and I am happy, more than happy, if I can offer some echo of its inconsolable vision, that lament for the fading into time....
I love this constant theme in your poems of the physicality of language, words. Dreamy and mysterious, I love the intimacy and child-like fascination of 'we turned the words in our fingers'.
Both poem and picture are perfect examples of that Merwin quote: "a theme that runs through all poetry and language is a feeling of loss".
I love the photo James, and there is too much unknown in this world, then the best is to look forward :), at least for me.
Anna :)
this picture is awesome!
wondering what these pictures would have been, or meant, without your words?
thank you -
for everything
Post a Comment