Words.

When I walk, stay behind;
Don’t get close to me,
‘Cause it’s sure to end in tears,
So just let me be.

Some will say that I’m no good;
Maybe I agree.
Take a look then walk away.
That’s all right with me.

-Eric Clapton, Lonely Stranger.

Because you are a pagan, you have to invest some concrete object – a thing – with power outside yourself.

-Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist.

Evening Prayer
Spinning away from the sun gradually, our land
lights up, dotted marks tattooed on Mother Earth’s face.
These lights bring sound, rumblings and hornings
     and…
No silence can be found in this jungle.

Movement about me unceasing, so is that same old 
     stillness within:
An unceasing flickering of aspiration and pride
clamouring about, wanting to gush forth.

The phenomenon is highly social, highly unescapable.
neither away from nor to it can I shrink.

It is good then that near total darkness will
     soon fall upon everything.
And most things will stop for those brief hours
And then I can imagine that afternoon is happening
     on the other side of Gaia.

Languages
Bonjour… Non. Salut! Je m’apelle…
C’est plus facile comme ça.
Et toi?
Je m’apelle… Oui, je ne suis pas
française. Non, la langue, pas de la
littérature.
Yes, you speak English too,
how silly of me.
Better, and easier in English.
Mitä kuuluu?
Kiitos, hyvää.
Puhun vahan Suomea.
Joo. Hilkaa hyvä tulee.
Joo.
Ni hao ma?
Wo hen hao. Xie xie.
Yi, er, san, si.
Dui le. Wo men man man lai. 

Mais un souvenir, un chagrin, sont mobiles. Il y a des jours où ils s’en vont si loin que nous les apercevons à peine, nous les croyons partis. Alors nous faisons attention à d’autres choses.

-Marcel Proust, «À la recherche du temps perdu»; «Le Côté de Guermantes».

Sorbon took us in,
étrangers, and there we found,
more than each other.

“Be careful about blogs especially, for that is where your past will follow you into your future,” Mother said, “Even employers now will check up on their potential employees in order to decide whether to hire them or not.” I listened, and said nothing. I thought to myself, one’s past doesn’t follow one into the future. The past is dead, immovable, immutable. It is us that brings our past everywhere we go, into the present, into the future. I do not need blogs in order for me to fear my past; I only need myself.