'Internal Lampposts'

It was like suddenly an abyss opened at my feet – I was standing on nothing. It was the strangest thing. Her passing away ripped the solidity out of the world. For a few weeks, I'd be walking along and suddenly I'd be unable to stand straight and I'd hold on to a lamppost and find the lamppost wasn't solid either. That was a turning point for me. It began a great journey. I don't feel I need to lean on lampposts any more. You need internal lampposts – and a few good friends.

This is the Nigerian writer Ben Okri describing the way he felt after hearing the news of his mother's death. The loss is beautifully captured as an absent space - a lamppost which functions as a hold on the real, a support against the dark abyss which has gone missing. I like the metaphor of 'internal lampposts' that he uses. Okri talks about how the reality of the loss transforms the real lamppost into an internal memory. It reminds me of different people that have been such figures of support to me through the years. This is a shout out to those who are no longer here. Each deserve a separate post and maybe someday I will write one for each of you - Dida, Pishu, George - hope you are all at peace...thank you.

from 'Tao Te Ching'

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening the knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.


Lao Tzu (translated by Stephen Mitchell).

Beware the ides of March...

We had to study this at school and it has memorable lines aplenty. I could till recently recite the famous speeches from memory. Fragments still remain. 'King Lear','Antony and Cleopatra'and 'Macbeth' I love but this is a childhood (okay, a teenage) favourite. So I leave you with a quotation from Cassius (I liked him despite his villainy!) as he provocatively describes Caesar in order to rouse Brutus to betrayal and murder:


"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."


Julius Caesar(1.2.135)

We escape the world through art, and art is our link with it.

Goethe

A Quote a day....

' A poem is not a rational performance in print, to be rationally analysed and appraised. It is a psychic disturbance.'

James Reeves