show me the place where the fire started
let me touch the black and the damp where you’re buried
don’t make me stand on traditiion
I want to make this incision
and watch the light pour from you
I know you’ll call me lustful and greedy for freeing you from what once was lit
still I’m gonna make a wreck of what’s left and put my name on it
"....what it might take to extricate a heart from the depths..." in the case of my closest, and longest lived friendship,it was suicide. Not much has changed since the fall of Rome and the replacement of stoicism by Christian lethargy.
Thanks, Martin--I appreciate your comment.
There have been many moments in life where I've suspected that I'm slow on the uptake. But then, why displace the power of observation for the sake of speech?
It's a conundrum )
I really like this, Landi, although i had to read yours and David's comments to get its meaning. That's all down to me though - i can be very slow that way. But don't let that detract from me saying what a great piece of writing it is. Nice work.
Hi David,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts--it's good to expand perspective through a little discourse. I tend to keep my thoughts close to the chest so I enjoy a bit of feedback when I air them.
I was thinking as I wrote this about how people can be disappeared to sadness. I got this image of a bright light being released and considered what it might take to extricate a heart from the depths. I thought too that such a rescue might be fraught with risk on many levels...
..no one makes it out of this life alive 💕
With regard to revisionism, I get it. I very recently had a conversation with a coworker and admitted that I no longer have any heroes. That's not to say that I don't admire anyone or their ability to put their principles before their own self-interest--I certainly do. However I know that those people are human and are often required to show leadership in impossible situations. Basically, they're prone to making decisions which don't hold up well in the light of convenient judgments about what's good and what's bad. Really, I could talk for a loooong time about this. I only wish I wasn't such a slow texter.
I'll leave with this...
Years ago, I was talking with a young man whose company I enjoyed a lot. He was very friendly and welcoming to me when I first moved to this foreign country where I have lived now for several years. Anyhow, he mentioned that he was a communist which I found quite interesting and I said I found it all the more interesting because I grew up during the final decades of the Soviet Union. What I was trying to get to but didn't know how because I'm not well-read on the various communist factions was the reason Stalin had Trotsky murdered with an ice pick.
My friend seemed puzzled. So I went on and told him we westerners had a sort of umbrella term by which we described how the Cheka assured their power and asked him if he had ever heard of The Red Terror. He said no so I went on some more and told him that I had read that they had very creative means of offing their enemies and would even freeze prisoners to break off their limbs in order to instill fear within the population. He said, no, he hadn't heard of any of that and the entire conversation ended when he admitted, "meh--maybe communism isn't for you."
Sorry, that was a longer story than I thought it would be.
It's a funny world, though, and accounts differ wildly...
Well, again, thanks. It feels nice to try to make something coherent out of this jumble of thoughts in my head 🌷
An insightful piece Landi.
We make monuments of our failures and our victories alike...occasionally because of the passage of time we forget the meaning of the monuments we build. Whether they are real or metaphoric we need to remind ourselves of their meaning...such a remembering can be painful yet productive.
I like the "and watch the light pour from you" line, especially prefixed by the reference to an "incision" as if a surgeon cutting out a cancer, a bad memory...let it bleed out and be exorcised.
Great idea and writing.
David
As an after thought although I do not think it your intention this could be applied in some manner to the popular trend of the revisionism of history, our willingness to bury it or expose the truth of it...which would/could shed new light or distort and pervert it according to opinion.
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Landi Cruz
Sun 30th Jun 2024 15:51
Thanks for your comment, John.
It is sad that we lose so many to deep sorrows--some are gone even before the grave...
And, I have to say that I agree with you about the trade off--I've read much from Marcus Aurelius that I've found quite useful.
I could say more, but I won't...
Thanks again.
PS
I'm sorry for your loss--the bonds we share in intimate friendships don't simply disappear with absence.