{"id":16538,"date":"2015-03-13T12:20:12","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T16:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16538"},"modified":"2015-03-13T12:20:12","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T16:20:12","slug":"the-evanescence-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/the-evanescence-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Evanescence of the World”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Monet:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: the twelve images from Monet’s <\/em>Rouen Cathedral<\/a> series, combined into a single image. Says Wikipedia: “The paintings in the series each capture the fa\u00e7ade of the cathedral at different times of the day and year, and reflect changes in its appearance under different lighting conditions.”]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

How can we ever know the difference we make to the soul of the earth? Where the infinite stillness of the earth meets the passion of the human eye, invisible depths strain towards the mirror of the name. In the word, the earth breaks silence. It has waited a long time for the word. Concealed beneath familiarity and silence, the earth holds back and it never occurs to us to wonder how the earth sees us. Is it not possible that a place could have huge affection for those who dwell there? Perhaps your place loves having you there. It misses you when you are away and in its secret way rejoices when you return. Could it be possible that a landscape might have a deep friendship with you? That it could sense your presence and feel the care you extend towards it? Perhaps your favorite place feels proud of you. We tend to think of death as a return to clay, a victory for nature. But maybe it is the converse: that when you die, your native place will fill with sorrow. It will miss your voice, your breath and the bright waves of your thought, how you walked through the light and brought news of other places. Perhaps each day our lives undertake unknown tasks on behalf of the silent mind and vast soul of nature. During its millions of years of presence perhaps it was also waiting for us, for our eyes and our words. Each of us is a secret envoi<\/em> of the earth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(John O’Donohue [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don’t even know it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Sue Monk Kidd [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all. I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Eug\u00e8ne Ionesco [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The Goddess Who Created This Passing World<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Goddess who created this passing world
\nSaid Let there be lightbulbs & liquefaction
\nLife spilled out onto the street, colors whirled
\nCars & the variously shod feet were born
\nAnd the past & future & I born too
\nLight as airmail paper away she flew
\nTo Annapurna or Mt. McKinley
\nOr both but instantly
\nClarified, composed, forever was I
\nMeant by her to recognize a painting
\nAs beautiful or a movie stunning
\nAnd to adore the finitude of words
\nAnd understand as surfaces my dreams
\nKnow the eye the organ of affection
\nAnd depths to be inflections
\nOf her voice & wrist & smile<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Alice Notley [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Monet Refuses the Operation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doctor, you say there are no halos
\naround the streetlights in Paris
\nand what I see is an aberration
\ncaused by old age, an affliction.
\nI tell you it has taken me all my life
\nto arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
\nto soften and blur and finally banish
\nthe edges you regret I don\u2019t see,
\nto learn that the line I called the horizon
\ndoes not exist and sky and water,
\nso long apart, are the same state of being.
\nFifty-four years before I could see
\nRouen cathedral is built
\nof parallel shafts of sun,
\nand now you want to restore
\nmy youthful errors: fixed
\nnotions of top and bottom,
\nthe illusion of three-dimensional space,
\nwisteria separate
\nfrom the bridge it covers.
\nWhat can I say to convince you
\nthe Houses of Parliament dissolve
\nnight after night to become
\nthe fluid dream of the Thames?
\nI will not return to a universe
\nof objects that don\u2019t know each other,
\nas if islands were not the lost children
\nof one great continent.\u00a0 The world
\nis flux, and light becomes what it touches,
\nbecomes water, lilies on water,
\nabove and below water,
\nbecomes lilac and mauve and yellow
\nand white and cerulean lamps,
\nsmall fists passing sunlight
\nso quickly to one another
\nthat it would take long, streaming hair
\ninside my brush to catch it.
\nTo paint the speed of light!
\nOur weighted shapes, these verticals,
\nburn to mix with air
\nand change our bones, skin, clothes
\nto gases.\u00a0 Doctor,
\nif only you could see
\nhow heaven pulls earth into its arms
\nand how infinitely the heart expands
\nto claim this world, blue vapor without end.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lisel Mueller [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

…the universe is, instant by instant, re-created anew. Therefore, he understood, there is, in truth, no Past, only a memory of the Past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Terry Pratchett [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: the twelve images from Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series, combined into a single image. Says Wikipedia: “The paintings in the series each capture the fa\u00e7ade of the cathedral at different times of the day and year, and reflect changes in its appearance under different lighting conditions.”] From whiskey river: How can we ever know the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,36,251],"tags":[142,1532,1994,2314,3895,3928,3995,3996,3997,3998],"class_list":{"0":"post-16538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-reading","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-terry-pratchett","13":"tag-john-odonohue","14":"tag-light","15":"tag-lisel-mueller","16":"tag-impermanence","17":"tag-transience","18":"tag-claude-monet","19":"tag-sue-monk-kidd","20":"tag-eugene-ionesco","21":"tag-alice-notley","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4iK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16538"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16542,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16538\/revisions\/16542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}