the season of forbearance is upon us

the maddening endeavor of body and mind

from out of our throats: the world

the tender pillar of fire

"Yesterday evening, after Schubert's final piano sonata had surprisingly come to mind once again,

I simply said to myself: 'That's it.' 

It's what inexplicably remains steadfast against the worst storms, against a longing for emptiness; what definitely deserves to be loved:

the tender pillar of fire guiding you even in the desert that seemingly has neither limits, nor an end."


from Philippe Jaccottet's And, Nonetheless: Selected Prose and Poetry 1990-2009 (p. 315)

because one must begin and one must end

one must get a grasp on the situation

one must reorganize one's self

if direction is an illusion

 

 then progress is - (what?)

forgive me, i don't know if i wake or dream

man

"In conclusion:

   no progress, not the slightest step forward, rather instead some retreating, and nothing but repetitions.

   No true thinking. Nothing but moods; ever less coherent changing moods; nothing but bits, scraps of life, apparent thoughts, fragments rescued from a debacle or worsening it. Scattered moments, broken off days, scattered words, because a hand touched a stone colder than cold.

   Distant from dawn, indeed.

   All the same, this cannot be left unsaid..."

from And, Nonetheless: Selected Prose and Poetry 1990-2009, Philippe Jaccottet p.359