[video]
There was a place where he did not know about death.
He had no concept of remorse, none of aching, nor of
pride nor joy. But even in that place was light. The
light is the same light that illuminates us now, but
the dark which gave the light boundaries- that dark
is a time to which, even if he had a wish to, he
could not return.
Allaw was brought from the east to the Island that
would be his raising place.
That journey west seemed to have been interrupted
too early, because it was out over the crashing
waves to the bead of lights where the sun sank that
his eyes would wander in unguarded moments. A
counted knowledge of the islands, banks and then
endless, endless waves that would be his stepping
stones in a continued journey were a common subject
for his forming mind, but the growing lines and
patterns of data, history and quantity, never slaked
the lust that dragged his mind thence, not like the
raw electric feel of experience that came from the
rocks scraping pitted beneath his heels as he waded
on the edge of the water beneath the wall.
Even at the far drawing of the spring tide, when
the nodding circuit of the sea harvesters lay still
and dry like bleaching bones of beached whales and
he stood on the very edge of his bounded world, his
breath light in the freezing air, he could feel the
tug insistent and impertinent, drawn up through
belly to fingertips as he reached out across the
fading water to the smoke of a light-stack a world’s
breadth away.
In that moment, the shout of his brother across the
line of the beach was the crack of the whip across
his back, the echoes athwart his side skipping from
wavetops to reach further than his fingertips could
ever stretch to brush.
Roundel had the grey eyes that they all shared, but
the bags that shielded and enfolded them were unique
to him, and seemed to grow heavier, deeper and more
filled as his knowledge and experience grew. By the
time that he was the eldest of the Island, they
would be milky and distant, seeing further than
fingertips had ever wanted to reach, but as he stood
beneath the wall, they shot a solid stare across the
distance of the beach, piercing Allaw’s chest,
holding him shaking beyond the line of the tide,
feeling the dereliction build upon him in layers.
Beyond the line of his companion’s furthest works,
the circuit of the harvesters that fed into the
factory and made them strong, he stood, reaching for
the shade of the smoke of another company’s light-
stacks. The tools entrusted to him to augur the
strength and salve the wear of circuit lay scattered
haphazard at his feet, his task dropped with them,
his responsibilities suspended, his duty forgotten.
And yet he could not even reach to pick them up, as
to do so would require him to accept the
completeness of his desertion, in order to begin the
journey back. And so he stood, outside the circuit,
as the light faded and the sea returned.
“Anima per Mundum mea quoties errabat maerens,
Ubi Paradisus esset, esset et Gehanna quaerens:
Toties ad me reversa — Iter ecce irritum;
“Paradisus et Gehenna en! omnino Ego sum.”
— Edward FitzGerald’s Fifth Latin Rubaiyat
[video]
From fundament to firmament, we fall like streaks of light;
We fall, we char, we seem to seek a meaning in the dark,
Through delving root to hanging fruit, that rise up out of sight.
As we whirl and hammer home, we do not fear the fight,
Immortal flesh, we feel no hurt until we see the mark
As from fundament to firmament, we fall like streaks of light.
A second’s pause is all it takes for fear ignite
And rush with silent tense alarm to every sweeping arc
Through delving root to hanging fruit, that rise up out of sight.
So silent, still, we stop and see the overhanging night
Then slowly step towards our fate, abandoned to embark
From fundament to firmament, we fall like streaks of light.
How could we climb, unaided, up, dizzying at height?
We seek the road our fathers trod, although the way is stark
Through delving root to hanging fruit, that rise up out of sight.
For though the way is sparse and crooked, the star that guides is bright
And from our selves we can rely upon a shining spark
From fundament to firmament, we fall like streaks of light
Through delving root to hanging fruit, that rise up out of sight.
Navi Retlav
(via myaloysius)
Tower of Pisces
(via myaloysius)
Nu Bleuté by Man Ray, 1948
(via cupcakekatieb-eyecandy)