We/ are we/ random

A conversation is an overture to many things: the next conversation, kinship, love. Cross this out. We redirect, retract, swerve--we talk about the weather. We hesitate to talk about love because we are proud, we are strong, we are practical, level-headed creatures; we would rather talk about things that matter--the stock market, the upcoming elections, your neighbor's latest acquisition, my last meal, your next.

And inside our heads, a voice, cooing a soliloquy: But my love, you are my miracle.

We snort at sentiment. It is shallow, it spells weakness. We are strong. We do not talk about love. The world will turn without love. We insist.

Abdicate, my love. Because the world is ruled by numbers. Ejected by the maths, the story of Eros and Psyche remains a myth. Yet we die a little at love's facelessness.

We do not admit this. We would rather have plotless dreams when we are asleep. Or grind our teeth.

We concatenate one chance with the next, and come up with a kaleidoscope of flukes. Where do they all go? We wonder. We wonder, and wonder, and on the surface, we are placid bodies of water. Stagnant, too, the voice. And on and on, we insist--what is dilatory must stay hidden.

Serendipity is underrated (or is it over? I can never tell) -- you are here because you filled out an application form; I am here because I had nothing better to do. We will never walk the same line; this conversation is flimsy. It will never hold. Art is for the foolish, I heard somebody say. But he who is not moved by sunsets and violins must have some serious searching to do, yes? My teacher agrees. Even Euclid had feelings, I'm sure. But where is it written?

There is a mathematical formula for everything. Yes, even love. We talk in tangents; the parallels outrun each other. We measure and throw away the excess. Love is an excess. We throw love away, we erase it. Or pretend to, at least. And then we cope by subterfuge.

"There will be time, there will be time," wrote one T.S. Eliot, and "Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,/ would it have been worth while,/ to have bitten off the matter with a smile,/"-- oh, hapless heart, what do you beat for? Who?

Stop that sighing, the minutes are ticking, we do not have time.

We do not talk about love. Let Apollo chase Daphne to the ends of the earth. It is a myth, as love is. Turn off that music in your head, and let's be productive, instead, so resume brainstorming, snack on these data, reconcile those figures. There is no you, there is no me.

But look, my love, you have turned into a tree.

Static

Let me tell you about my recent preoccupation with stasis, about the question of what one is supposed to do with it, about whether one is supposed to do something about it. But then again, will that not negate the stasis, will that not make it something else? I fear I will contradict myself; I often do. I will pause somewhere, I am certain, and I wonder if you will wonder about that pause, you who seem to find blanks in pauses. But know that there is stasis in certain pauses; in others, thoughts, in some, confusion. And then there are those that hide stretches of waiting, variable in length. 

The afternoon could drag on like a tune pretending to be a melody, and I shudder at the thought, for that could mean a chance forever lost. But what am I doing taking chances? There is comfort in stasis.

I will take a sip from my cup of tea, I am sure, I might finger the label at the end of the string and fold it into smaller and smaller shapes, but let me talk to you about you, too, will you? Will you let me, if I could find it in myself to do it, if I could allow myself to leave the safety of my pause? As it is, I have a feeling I will end up (once more) analyzing the stasis in teacups: the subterfuge of stillness resulting from the opposition between teabag and water.

Let me tell you a story I found along the highway, instead. This, I just might be able to pull off.

Variation on a theme: Daphne and Apollo

You have betrayed me, Eros.

You have sent me

my true love.

- Louise Gluck, "The Reproach"

Waning, trembling, loss of breath: the first signs of the permanence that will become the end of this story.

Picture woodland, Dear Reader, imagine trees with whorled roots, and leaning branches; picture sunlight and comforting shade; picture the occasional brook, silver rivulets crossing brown earth and clusters of green grass; the sky must be a blinding blue, for it cannot be otherwise, the mind will always insist on blueness; let the breeze be a delicious balm--in the beginning, at least. Isn't this how most stories start, after all?

Or imagine the city, if you will, the city with its absent stillness. I prefer the woods, but do what you must.

STICK TO THE STORY. A reprimand. There should always be a reprimand.

The mind is where the chase leads; the mind is where the chase is, and I begin:

The shadows lengthen as the day loses ground. Two shadows, they were, and one of them was faceless.

MIND YOUR TENSES.

At the body's swiftest, the limbs persevere, and the mind endures.  Soon, twilight, herald of night. Soon, the wind; soon, the truth. YOU ARE GETTING AHEAD OF YOURSELF. But it is a race, is it not?

IT IS A CHASE.

I erase a word and replace it with the same word and think that I am discovering newness. It is a form of madness. I look out the window and see a small, round moon. I think it is more yellow than white, but then I change my mind.

One shadow fleeing from the faceless one, from the impermanent one, he whose being is always a makeshift one. I come up with a list of adjectives: transient, shifting, short-lived, they. They is not an adjective. Impermanent, then.

And that was why I ran. An epiphany.

WHO IS THE SPEAKER HERE? A reprimand.

The other shadow, breaking, then, turning into someone else, breaks again.

Daphne, dazzled by a slice of brilliance, finds herself turning--

That was not in the outline. That sentence pushed its way from below, from somewhere unseen. That sentence was an insistence I did not foresee. It begs to be italicized, but I would rather look the other way. It was I, after all, who was dazzled, it was I who turned; it was I who mistook that slice of brilliance for light. There is no outline.

WHO IS THE SPEAKER HERE? There should always be a reprimand.

It never ends. I cannot have you follow me this way.

WHO IS THE You HERE? But must there always be a reprimand?

I have (finally, finally) taken the great myth and torn it apart.

You are the tree that I want to become.

The Walk Home

what surprises you most in what you feel,

earth's radiance or your own delight?

- Louis Gluck

The lamps were lit, the street was pale yellow, and my steps were unhurried as I walked.

I was thinking, it is no longer the night that's catching up with me; it is I who's catching up with the night. I was remembering a particular moment--daybreak, it was--when you made me realize twilight no longer made me sad, the way it used to, for a very long time.

A small, unforeseen smile, a quickening in my chest, the deep, languorous texture of evening--an aqueous joy was rushing through my veins, and I felt light, like a murmur, or a ripple. A faint memory of, of--something brushed my left cheek, and was gone before I could give it a name. The word/s seemed far away, too blurry for me to make out. Or was it a breeze?

I laughed, out loud, and the sound echoed upward, toward the sky (like I knew what sky meant), like my laughter always does when I am laughing, and happy. I felt my heart swell with anticipation. Just a few more steps and I would turn the corner that led to you.

Thoughts of hot tea, of music and books, of hope and love, wafted in my mind like promises about to be fulfilled. I brushed back some wisps of hair that fell over my eyes and quickened my pace. Awake and pensive, by the light of the furtive moon, I knew you were waiting.