ETERNAL RECURRENCE AGAIN
Everything around me is dark. I am seeing
things through a broken still-camera in my
heart. All things are dark and gloomy...
this darkness is looking good.
-
This big painting, by Velazquez, is
looming over my head : 'The Surrender
of the Dutch at Breda', or something like
that. Fires and pyres, the big, brown rump
of a horse, lances and spears, and then
that soldier, staring out at me. Brown
and blue, my heart again.
-
There is nothing more difficult to hide
than Fear - it makes us shake and
shudder, just with memories of our
days. I wouldn't know why, nor what
it's possibly worth. To be or not,
that question comes back, and the
fires seem still burning on Breda's
wharves - eternal recurrence again.
-
Instead. Instead, I want to be thinking
about 'Las Meninas' - 'The Spinners',
also by Velazquez - the other picture
in my mind : the reflection of a King and
Queen in a stupid, awful mirror - who cares,
of that? - the painting within a painting - 'oh,
what is that?'' - the little, red jug held by
the maid, the little boy who kicks the dog,
and, the little girl, being handed that jug.
All this, like words; so much at once.
-
And who am I, that this matters? Traveling
time, five centuries near, to bespeak some
ancient and doddering painting : dumb Dutch,
bold Spaniard, doped Italian, all! Time stops,
and it happens again and again. Everything
around me is dark. I am seeing through a
broken still-camera in my heart.
Eternal recurrence again.