legacy of loss

Last night I went to a writer's talk sponsored by Bromberg’s, a Swedish publishing house. Nicole Krauss, who was the guest of honor, said that she had very little contact with her readers and had therefore thought of putting a blank postcard at the back of her book, The History of Love, and asking readers to use it to share with her where they were when they read the book. She also mentioned a postcard pact she had with one of her readers and how she kept the card (which documented her promise to this reader to publish a new book every other year) on her desk while she was writing her most recent book, Great House.

During the pause, I had the opportunity to chat briefly with Nicole, mentioning that I didn't remember where I was when I read The History of Love, but that I did remember being so moved by it that I sent it to my 90-year-old mom in the US, and that it happened to be the last book my mom read, or rather had read aloud to her by my sister. I told her that I would never forget, however, where and when I was reading her first novel, Man Walks into a Room, because it was as I was sitting alone in a café in Stockholm on midsummer day 2007. An old friend (likewise a handsome actor and immigrant Jew in a white linen suit) walked in and sat down beside me, interrupting my reading only a minute or so before my brother called to say that my mother had just passed. Thus I was not alone when I learned of my mother’s death.

Interesting how literature can, like one writer's desk in Great House, serve as "a counterfeit world that offers comfort that life itself does not allow." Perfectly in keeping with the legacy of the literary imagination, and the reality of metafiction, Nicole touched my arm and thanked me for sharing. “As we grow older we draw more from experience than from what we have learned.” “Literature brings people together” were some more of what she said. Now I’ll never forget her big brown eyes, nor those of the man who walked into the café that midsummer.

March is a time

What ever happened to the February air
Did I not breathe you, did I not care?
Don’t tell me you were not by my side
the very chill in which I confide.
Lighter and brighter already the skies
Deepening the lines to my surprise.
Full of wisdom yet to learn
a crown that we can never earn
Cherries will blossom this I know
March is a time for bursting.

Rare flakes

Rare stud snowflakes. These travelers from a great height are formed only in very cold temperatures.

In New York, an autodidactic research scientist named Vincent J Schaefer created the first artificial snowflakes in a "cold box" into which he breathed. The moist air of his breath condensed into snow clouds. Later, he actually caused snow to fall in nature by using dry ice.

The reader is also referred to avalanche, glacier, hail, sleet, snow blindness, snow line, snowplow, and snowshoe.

Sundown 15.13 p.m. CET

All flares of rebellion soon tramped about
all suds of revolt quickly died out.
Left was a longing to come to terms
beyond tires of desire and retribution.

Are we not best when we crave
the good we are at a loss to brave,
beyond the pollution of this shoal,
pointing direction without a goal,
free from reckless strife?

Sundown 15.08 p.m. CET

(interpretation of Hades and Euclid II by Harry Martinson)

Hade’s oven fell
onto flat land
passing arbitrary judgments,
burning in brick huts
- superficial gravestones -
victims of shallow treatment,
without solace from above
without support from the depths,
regarded of no value
regarded without redress,
regarded without measure of eternity.
Their wailing meets with scorn,
and the crown of measure, Euclid,
cries out, seeking Chronos’ sphere.

Snowfall (dedicated to Christian Bök)

Snow falls, snow falls. Snow falls, and with it the ideas of snow (ideas playful, cool, elusive). The first snow falls with the graceful descent of a few feathery flakes. These scattered crystals mesmerize as they pass by our window, some generating particular awe as they float back up into the sky. We wonder if they are falling to confirm gravity or to prepare for a second coming. When snow falls we talk about the weather, how complex, irresolute and trivial it is, and how you must know everything to foresee it. And yet like meteorologists, when snow falls we continue to forecast, knowing all the while that we are just guessing. If the first snowfall seems to mock us, we are not offended, because we can see that as soon as it touches ground it is short-lived. The first snowfall hints at natural patterns, the beauty as well as the devastation of climate change. Scientists tell us that all snowflakes stem from hexagonal ice plates and that when the temperature is close to zero and the wind is still, these microscopic plates use the humidity of the atmosphere to branch out, but that when it is windy and only slightly cooler, they form hollow shafts, minute needles. And so as snow falls on a wind-still day like today, fluttering flakes – each with six extended wings – are silently lighting upon our windowsills like a cheerful chorus of Christmas carolers, though they remain silent. When snowflakes fall, we are reminded that they have not come to be heard, but to bring silence, to insulate, to seal cracks, to hush birds, muffle footsteps, dampen noisy traffic, and to reflect the light of the moon and the stars. Snowflakes fall, ever so quietly, fascinating us with their spectacular choreography in a new light. A couple of hexamerous bodies careen toward our panorama to the rhythm of a tango, freezing in a brief moment of passion and intimacy, before abruptly changing direction and swiftly disappearing from our sight. Others whirl like tiny dervishes in a trance. Each flake has its own path to follow through layer upon layer of atmospheric change. Each and every member of these dance troupes is unique and not to be mistaken for some frivolous, trifling or inanimate matter. Snow falls, and with it more and more dainty, winged crystals join together in a spirited flurry, like in the second act of Swan Lake. Then suddenly, the temperature plummets and the wind whips. Snow falls, and with it old ideas of snow (driven, bitter, apocalyptic), no longer content to fall gently in flakes, but intent on piercing with needles, throwing darts, spears and javelins in a random blizzard that is surely the beast of a Second Coming, if not a widening gyre that signals the revelation of a traceless void. When snow falls now it is charged to obliterate all marks of distinction, to bury everything in its path under powdery white blankets and crusty grey sheets, and to interfere with any clear vision by rapidly zooming in and out of focus. When snow falls now, it falls in a relentless flow of cosmic particles and icy asteroids that send chills up our spine as they scrape past our windows and ports. (Occasionally and incidentally) when the snowfall lets up we are temporarily relieved by a landscape view of the winter wonderland that has just touched down on planet Earth.

snowfall

The vertical fence posts planted in my garden last year are the earthbound foreground of an experiment for today. Pointing to the sky, like a row of pencils, they border the significance of choice among a myriad of ways to create new perspectives on a day (daylight is short at this time of year). The red points of the stakes have clearly taken on new form and color. Their rusty red tips, once the tools of a proofreader, are now soft, blunt, dull and grey as erasers. Perhaps they have become the stubs of a universal conscience with which poets communicate, or the toothless gum of a Muse?