The edge of the world
This is us. Who we are as well as what and where we’ve been. This is what happens, the way I see it, the way you saw it. That’s what I’ll tell them when they ask. And they will ask, of course, they’re very inquisitive. I’ll show them this one and this one, and that other one I like so much. And I’ll squint and recall and proclaim, isn’t it beautiful? We were young once and wise once and childlike forever. Fragments that would likely go unnoticed were gleeful moments that we lived eagerly and urgent with a perspective that only comes from being that particular you, in that particular space, at that particular time. This is us finally safe and free, and we weren’t the only ones. There were others and in consonance we spun rare wonders from trees and lead, dust and colours, ones and zeroes, found objects; extracting every ounce of glimmering beauty from the edge of one world to the core of another. This is us. In a time of upheaval, a time of war, of great heartache both personal and universal, specific and widespread, ephemeral and everlasting. We’re drawn with a simple picture, chained by a string of letters, exhaled in the same breath. Interconnected by seeming happenstance when in fact, we were foretold by million-year old stardust, the same stardust that now flecks our wandering eyes. And you, you will get to see it all, you will watch the universe’s story unfold before your breathless presence. Not precisely the way it happens in bits at a time, interrupted stops and starts, pain and separation and grief. You’ll experience it together, full, complete, unfettered by perceived limitations of time and space, undisturbed by reality. This is us, I’ll whisper and I’ll show them those and maybe some of these, too. And they will ooh and aah with large eyes wide and their gently pursed lips will mouth our words in past tense while drifting toward their future dream, just as we did.
This is us. And we will be them.
12 December 2007 at 2:00 am
Naturally (me being me), I do a poststructuralist reading of this: what happens when we incorporate language and try to *narrate* the existence of the world. It’s fun to think of it on that level as well as a more literal one.
As always, I love your sense of poetry and think you are a supreme word-designer. Beautiful work, Ani.
12 December 2007 at 6:53 pm
I’m not always in tune with all I’ve seen here (or elsewhere), but this has come close. Similar frequencies and wavelengths. At least for the moment.
12 December 2007 at 9:12 pm
Marcelle: Thanks! You totally get it, some of this was definitely about reconciling the personal with the universal.
2ndhandsoul: Most of the things I read, while on a similar wavelength, are challenging and surprising. I like that. I’m glad my writing might do that for you, in whatever small way.
12 December 2007 at 9:58 pm
Elegiac.
I had to read it in silence, rather than play the song, purely holding the never-forgotten sound of its delicate thunder in my memory, because I didn’t want to disturb the magical hush - and the sheer wonder - of these words.
13 December 2007 at 7:38 pm
i want to hug those deer and feed them gummy worms from my hand.
14 December 2007 at 11:45 am
AUW: I like magical hush; like swirling colour and sparkle flashes behind your eyelids. ;) Thank you.
Sam Pink: I know, me too. All nose petals and fluffy bums!
14 December 2007 at 5:29 pm
Deer are too fucking cute, they hog cuteness, nose petals indeed. And you Ani, are magic.
16 December 2007 at 10:18 am
There were deer with a Santa at the mall. The deer, however, were in a cage. The magic of Christmas.
16 December 2007 at 6:56 pm
These are just the sort of thoughts I have when I’m swinging in my hammock. I love it when the tourists ooh and aah.
18 December 2007 at 2:25 pm
Lillipilli: And fluffy bums! You can’t miss the fluffy bums. Don’t you love a fluffy bum? Fluffy? Erm.
Clarissa: Um. So how are they supposed to fly? Christmas magic indeed!
Gorilla Bananas: Hello, Mr Bananas. Ooh! A hammock you say? Ahhh…
18 December 2007 at 11:48 pm
Did she just say ‘fluffy bum’?
What kind of blog is this turning into, for heaven’s sake?