a day full of waiting for the snow

and so, the dead have been invading my dreams the whole past weeks. the birds have tried to break into my room. it will snow soon.

and i think of this song:

for no apparent reason, of course. 

graveyards

i like graveyards. i really do. i like the concept of the dead being dead in a solidarity that surpasses any union the living can ever muster. graveyards are the only place in this country that grow. where people return from wherever they have been, to die, to be buried in. i can say i like graveyards conceptually, remotely, abstractly – they contribute to the order of the world, and are – at least here – places of greenery and peace.

that is the abstract graveyard, easy to like because it is remote in its abstraction. because i do not know what is going on among the living, the little etiquettes and rituals observed, the musts and must nots, the thou shalls and how could yous.

lvls

today, at some point, holding my frame together with sheer willpower, trying to be sociable and coherent, i suddenly realised that all i really wanted, even longed for, was controllable levels of pain . nothing fancy, just that.
gee, are my standards deteriorating and ideals imploding.

Posted by Wordmobi

i, too want to be out cold drunk and have no responsibility, but i apparently cannot

in the face of death, all our little games lose sense.

it is the ars moriendi in our parts, to talk of passing on like it were a trip to somewhere else.

‘if something happens, you know who to call. because they will know where the death-clothes are. and the money is..there. and i am telling this to you because your bro is out cold drunk’

and yes. not to worry. not to come over because of snows and stuff. not to mess up someone else’s day.

and ‘do not be angry or upset with me for being like this. i feel better now.  just need to sleep. and all will be alright.’

this is the ars moriendi of my people, my family. and this is what i will do, when my time comes. yet – why the   **ll does it ducking hurt like that.

and all the decisions i will make now will be wrong. plain wrong. whatever i do, or think, or abstain from doing. i believe this is that hurts the worst.

i remain, to witness that desert is only a season, and thus – passing

Isa 35:2-5

There [in the blossoming desert land] the Lord will display his glory,
the splendour of our God.

With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands,
and encourage those who have weak knees.

Say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, and do not fear,
for your God is coming to destroy your enemies.
He is coming to save you.”

And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind
and unplug the ears of the deaf.

Holy Bible, New Living Translation

a prophet exits the dry and unwelcoming land to bring news of its direct opposite.

what makes the desert blossom? what changes the gruff and unforgiving land into a welcoming garden?

it is the transforming experience of the presence of the living god – a moment of truth and life itself.

parallels between dry, parched, unwelcome, desert, deserted wasteland and people: tired hands, weak knees, fearful hearts, blindness, inability to hear, inability to move.

the prophet assures the people that god takes spiritual dryness personally – and is sure coming to fight it.

there hypothetically are two kinds of desert periods in life: a) the enemy of god period and b) the pre-prophetic period.

what to do with unicorns

from the student works:

then the police asked man: “did you saw the unicorn?” and man answered that he didn’t saw a unicorn.

so this is why there are no unicorns left. someone just sawed them. the next saw film, maybe, should be about sawing unicorns?

Ziedonis and graveyard reform

Imants Ziedonis. Epifānijas. 1978.

this is my contribution to this time of traditional latvian whatever they think is proper to do in the graveyards. a translation with some elements of adaptation, on the revelation of then and there, which somehow also is here and now. epiphanies rule.

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Sometimes I feel graveyards need a reform. They look very beautiful in our parts, but their sole purpose is to get people think of the misery of life. What do those numbers of birthdates and deathdates tell you? It is a miserable sum, four-digit numbers minus other four digits. The whole life expressed in two digits: 25, 60, 83; and it does not matter who they were. Could have been and idiot, or a politician, or a fingersmith. So I am told that here lieth Karlis, 52 years, mourned by whomever. Besides him, one can see Justines, Mudites, Alfreds and Michaels, all have lived for a while, and all are mourned. People express their mourning identically, in one sentence, throughout the graveyard. Wherever you look, you read: “Dear deceased will be held in loving memory by the family”. What a faceless and horrible card-index! It appears that people prove the poverty of their memory by creating card indexes on crosses and headstones in their graveyards. Or maybe the dead ones have merited so simple an entry. Imagine a card index, containing only:

1) name, surname
2) years of life
3) in loving memory, mourned by, will be missed etc.

There is no sign, no word, no formula, no code that this is the place where a whole life, a whole encyclopaedia lies buried! Seriously, go home and do your mourning, dear mother.