Image by Gerd Altmann via Pixabay
Again I feel the words inspire
Their mournful calm; serene,
Yet tinged with infinite desire
For all that might have been—
— Matthew Arnold, “Obermann Once More”
photograph by Johnny Cohen via Unsplash
For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a “fiancé,” why she had played at beginning again…
— Albert Camus
My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west;
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
— Coleridge
Camden Public Library, “The 6-masted schooner George W. Wells…” (detail) (ca. 1900)
a closed book
just for an instant
the future,
ionized and incandescent
split the sky
then was lost
—J.S.
G. F. Handel – Suite No. 2 – Adagio by Elina Christova
cf. Cincinnati Magazine, 1989 and Lightning : Calvin Company
“My mind is unsettled and my memory confused. I have of late turned my thoughts with a very useless earnestness upon past incidents. I have yet got no command over my thoughts; an unpleasing incident is almost certain to hinder my rest…”
—Johnson’s diary quoted in Boswell’s Life of Johnson
Ghosts appear and fade away…
John Sapiro 