Here Are My Black Clothes

 

I think now it is better to love no one
than to love you. Here are my black clothes,
the tired nightgowns and robes fraying
in many places. Why should they hang useless
as though I were going naked? You liked me well enough
in black; I make you a gift of these objects.
You will want to touch them with your mouth, run
your fingers through the thin
tender underthings and I
will not need them in my new life.

in The House on Marshland (1975), by Louise Glück, American poet and Nobel prize in literature (April 22, 1943 - October 13, 2023)

 

Before the frost

 

Montlivault (France), 2018

Unmovable

 

I have built entire cities

blown rivers off their course

levelled mountains to nought

wrote whole libraries

shaped universes

the only thing I couldn't move

which proved too much

for my hands and my heart

was you

 

Azure eye

 

Pornichet (France), 2021

Suspended in light

 

if/and

 
If I were a piece of paper,
I’d probably burn myself.

If I were a car, I’d crash
or run myself over a cliff.

If I were a particle, I’d box
myself in with a cat, and wait.

But I am none of these things,
I am not sure of what I am, exactly.

I am not sure of what I am not either,
but that hasn’t got me very far.

Perhaps, perhaps I should be
and not be any and all of these things.

If I were a piece of paper,
I am turning myself into a poem.

If I will be a car, I ought to
visit every corner of the world.

If I also am a particle, I am a cat
and a box and I awake and sleep.

In case of doubt, I should be and do
all and nought, unbe and undo all.

 

My heart also was on fire

 

The unlost and the unfound

 
“. . . a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces.

Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother's face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.

Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?

O waste of lost, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this weary, unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?

O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.”

in Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life (1929) by Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938).

Never discard the words of anyone whom you cannot say for certain if they are a genius or a mad person.

 

A measurement of discovery

 

"There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery."

Enrico Fermi, physicist and Nobel laureate (1901-1954)

Apparently this is what these people have found out. They were scientists in their own rights, showing us that what we thought was obvious was indeed...a discovery several orders of magnitude less tantalisingly promising than they initially thought (Darwin Award for the win).

Once in a blue moon