December 19, 2014
Carpe Diemn
One
last confused attempt to “take the day,” and to say what that means.
I have this from Gaspar Stephens: “But
back to the honest-ad-deum Latin, I am of the impression that we do not -
cannot! - seize a damn thing, that we are, on the contrary, seized by, but that
in our hubris we spin the story so that we are all seizers. Et tu, Brute?”
I don’t think we’re all seizers. (See Take Five. But I don’t think we’re seized either. Currently I’m thinking about it this way:
we are discoverers.
I happen to be in Lisbon – it doesn’t
matter how I got there. What does matter is that I have long wanted to visit
the Prado in Madrid and especially I have wanted to see Velázquez’ Las Meninas. So, I find a place to stay
near the museum; I rent a car; I drive to Madrid; I eat a late supper; I sleep.The next morning, I get up; I eat a big breakfast, because I don't know when I'll eat again; I walk to the museum; I buy my ticket and get with it
a map to the galleries. I find my way into the room where the painting is
displayed and I see it; I walk up to it, and then I walk into it, where there is more than to see – though I do walk around the painter to try to see what he sees and also how he is brushing it into life
on the canvas. But there is more than to see; there is to hear – brush against
palette, rustle of skirts, chatter and squeak of conversation; there is to
smell – powder and paint, sweat, dog; if I were invisible I could reach out and – I imagine I am
invisible and I can feel the fabric of the Infanta’s dress, I can put my hand
in front of the painter’s canvas and feel his brush pass through it; though I
cannot be seen and I cannot speak, I bow to the king and the queen you (on the
outside) can only see in the mirror. Then I follow Don José Nieto Velázquez,
the queen’s chamberlain, out into the hallway, where I am visible again, and he
shows me how to come back into the world. In the world, I come back to Lisbon,
to Madrid, to the museum, to the painting in the Prado. I think, “I’ll walk into
it again.”
It’s a
small enough adventure, a plane, a car, a room, a walk; but I go to it, it
doesn’t come to me. And I go through it, as well.
A Song On the End of the World
Czeslaw Milosz, 1911 - 2004
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering
net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows
are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as
it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields
under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the
edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the
street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes
nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the
air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning
and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and
archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening
now.
As long as the sun and the moon
are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a
rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening
now.
Only a white-haired old man, who
would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s
much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his
tomatoes:
No other end of the world will
there be,
No other end of the world will
there be.
Copyright © 2006 The Czeslaw Milosz Estate.
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