“It is this, this endless heat and rousedness of physical sensation which keeps the body full and potent, and flushes the mind with a blood heat, a blood sleep. And this sleep, this heat of physical experience, becomes at length a bondage, at last a crucifixion. It is the life and the fulfilment of the peasant, this flow of sensuous experience. But at last it drives him almost mad, because he cannot escape.”
D.H. Lawrence, from Twilight in Italy
Of here
Are they arriving or leaving?
Do they want to be here
or hope to go somewhere else?
What is here?
Is here the forefoot or the backfoot,
the firm one?
"Ripresi via per la piaggia diserta,
sì che'l piè fermo sempre era'l più basso."
"I set off across the deserted slope,
my firm foot always the foot below."
Because it points elsewhere, hope
does not have a here.
What is here? The deserted slope?
What is, so hopelessly, here?
Is here the blurry boy jumping
off the back of the cart?
Is here the infant who's nowhere,
as he sleeps in his mother's arms?
The mother, so graciously weary?
The oxen, castrated, unwilling to will?
By now it's clear that here isn't home.
Is here where you stop and restore
before leaving again?
Is here where a tree is,
in the form (or not) of a crucifix?
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Note: Dante, Inferno, Canto I:29-30.
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from The Loving Question, December 2024