26 November 2009

Die Erinnerung


Last week, I read a letter from a poet who was lamenting to his friend about how nobody understands him. The letter ended with him lamenting about this very lamenting, about him confessing to his friend about his weakness. I recreated the suffering of the poet in me as I read the letter and for a brief moment relived that pain.
Yesterday, somebody told me about a French philosopher who killed herself on the birth anniversary of her master, who was her favorite philosopher. I tried to freeze that perspective of hers within me that drove her to suicide. I upheld this perspective for a short while to indicate to her that her life was not in vain, that I see what she did, and that, in one sense, this whole world ceased to exist after she died.
And this morning, as I woke up, I imagined a picture of a still unborn child smiling. I understood that innocence, and the untainted purity with which the child saw the whole world. I smiled with the child.
I wondered if the poet, the philosopher and the child were looking at me from somewhere as I was doing all of these things. And the sight of the moon indeed reminded me of the night when the four of us had a great feast together.

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