I think it is vitally important to learn from history.
George Santayana once said that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
I can add that one of the first things we learn from the past is that those who repeat it are doomed.
As the tide goes out
and the interface between the land and the sea is laid bare,
the soggy mud reflects the majestic sky
so clearly,
so deeply,
so poignantly…
Tears well up in my eyes.
I feel at one with the mud,
but not with the sky.
Forgotten rooms, abandoned spaces, full of rubbish. Rubbish that drives you mad. Leave it there in the dark. Leave it there to rot – ugly feelings, broken relationships, things you had to forget in order to forgive… Lock the door and throw away the key. Phew… Isnt’t it better? You can start with a clean slate, clear conscience, honest gaze. Aren’t you nice? You can be happy now. You can be whole and pure. You can flower, a beautiful snow-drop, untouched by the rotting rubbish. Oh, but it gets in through the roots, it fills your fruit with poison of all that festered there, in the dark, in the abandoned spaces. You try desperately: keeping your thoughts pure and your living clean… but the poison coursing through your veins makes you into a deadly nightshade. All that you touch withers and dies, it turns into rubbish. Rubbish that drives you mad. You build them up, layer upon layer, abandoned spaces, forgotten rooms. How many layers now? How many more can you build, before you realise that you can never start over, never be clean, never become a snow-drop… before you scream, shrill and ugly, through tears and despair, bending over the withered remains of another broken relationship. And there is no way back, no way to clean out the spaces that feed your roots, for they are the forgotten rooms, the rooms that you locked and threw away the key.
Time is full of voids,
empty spaces devoid of substance or meaning.
You think,
– Where has the time gone?
and there is no answer.
There is evidence:
worn out shoes, wrinkles, bigger digits on the calendar and your pay slips…
But the time collapsed, like an empty balloon, and there is nothing there but a thin film of facts.
Time is supported by a skeleton.
Big, public ribs – wars and discoveries:
a burning child running down a dusty street,
tears in the eyes of a woman who can see again,
a man stepping in front of a tank,
another – stepping out of a shuttle into the void,
facing overpowering odds with the same grim determination.
Small, private bones:
sitting on a curb, waiting to be picked up when everyone else is gone,
feeling your hand on my back while making love – so big and warm,
holding my child, crying in pain and joy,
screaming in fear and frustration at the sight of love slipping away,
laughing helplessly at a silly joke repeated again and again.
Moments of loss and gain,
kindness and thoughtlessness,
Moments that stretch time and give it shape.
Time has bones,
bones that keep you up,
bones that stick in your throat
and make you choke.
Every tunnel can be like a birth –
think of it – every tunnel!
You emerge in a different place
in alternative light.
Just avoid going back to your berth,
running down your runnel.
Catch the wind and escape into space;
take delight in your flight.
Every entrance inside can entrance –
inner spaces are vast –
While a path to yourself is a mere aside,
it can feel like an end.
Every exit can give you a chance
to escape from the past.
Through a tunnel you pass outside,
to expand and extend.
A sudden smile amidst the hurried crowd,
in dull routine – imagination’s spark,
in place of fear – laughing out loud…
small lights are so precious in the dark!
When the heavens are reflected in the depths –
throw a rock, watch the transformation.
Isn’t it more fun than mere reflection?
