THE HUGE DARK WORDS OF HISTORY
Last Halloween, this little angel got it together and did go out and bring home actual pounds of candy. Which reminds me of a dentist in San Jose who advertises each year to bring your candy to him. I have forgotten what he says he does with it, or what you might get in return. He puts the sign up in the window of his office on a main road every year. Does anyone actually do it? Mysterious.
So just now I had to go look up the angel phrase I just used as a title. Since my head is furnished with so many bits of text, I had forgotten, Father Abraham, that this was from your First Inaugural Address.
Tonight, Dear Reader, you get just a final stanza from a poem by Bei Dao. Perhaps I am tapering off? This is from his collection Unlock. which came out in that magical year, 2000. Remember that year? The poem is called A MOMENT AGAINST THE LIGHT, and here is just the end, from page 79:
a butterfly flutters
among the huge dark words of history
I love this moment
like a clothesline leading to the past
where tomorrow's wind is blowing
Bei Dao, translated by Eliot Weinberger and Iona Man-Cheong
More and more, I am wanting to write some poetry of my own. Working on the blog regularly like this seems to be stirring brain-text files. Good Night, perhaps we will dream about history?
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