I thought it was Window's Talk.

time is a line and it's burning. a line which becomes a life which becomes a land. they're all burning. and i don't recognize them anymore.

the ash on my palm split with a past with a present. these miles of fields hold the palimpsest of a future.

a mark will tell you something. will i hit my mark and smile at the thin man? will i get to the source in time? will i miss it completely?

every step of mine is a question mark. but i won't be an end in the race.

my mouth is mute. my tongue is broken. but i wait to be shot through with light.

i wait for the word. mine are just holograms which repeat the same lost meaning.

nothing can be said. "everything depends on the point where nothing can be said".

---

chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

PRAYER, written at 3rd street coffee house

What I let loose from my tiny eternity,
the flapping drafts of my unfinished thoughts,
a sidelong glance in the midst of things,
nervous little breath pushing itself along.

Believe (forgive) me if you can.

Ever-present here the laws of denial.

My hands open and close catching the wind.

The complex mechanism of the break.
The wind whips and ends. Elsewhere words stop.
Elsewhere there is direction (oh this corner)
and things go along it and stop.

The windy sphere of hope and lack,
the windiness of middle evening,
oh what difference could it have made,
I am not persuaded, this torn song in the first miles of night,
so full of hollowness, so wild with pity.

My eyes quickly shut then scribbled back open again. A stopping and starting.

And every step is a day of the week,
an inch and a step, how long? how long?
Can I sing with you, you who has written the song, not you who has interpreted it,
because only the writer knows the story.

And now, I will sing, and now, I will give thanks, and now, I will simply put my head down and move.

"Can i sing with you, you who has written the song, not you who has interpreted it, because only the writer knows the story".

yes, *the* story is only known to the writer. but the great thing about this particular writer is that her stories hold many other stories within *the* story. so many other meanings, so many other points of view, so many other perspectives. there's never just one of each. and there's never room for the word never in her songs. *the* story never denies the existence of all the others. it actually incites them to come forward and to be seen and understood. and it gets richer with every one. and all these stories defy and deny "the laws of denial". they live within songs just like them, songs of open hand. always.

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

ps: because they are like that, these songs mark a difference, embrace difference, invite difference, make a difference. each time.

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

ps #2: one can only know the worth of a difference after one dares to make it.

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

Thank you, Fátima, for putting this into words.

> yes, *the* story is only known to the writer. but the great thing
> about this particular writer is that her stories hold many other
> stories within *the* story.

And I tend to think that it is known to the writer in kind of the same way the story of the universe is "known" to its creator [lets's assume - for a second - there is one].

It's an open thing. "Known", but undetermined.
An uncountable number of stories branches out of the main one. Or follow in parallel.
Billions of galaxies with stars and planets and life-forms and cultures and individuals.
And all these coexist.
And each have their own stories.
And all these stories intertwine.
And each of them matters.

The first time I listened to "Pilgrimage" the picture I had in mind, was the path of life through the eons -- like a pilgrim wanders through a desert along the line of the geological record
(and I still have that picture).

And by strange coincidence [lets's assume - for a second - there is such thing], just an hour ago before reading Fátima's mail(s) I listened to Sting's "The Book of Life" of his live album "Sacred Love" (2003)

-klaus

PS: it's so nice to be able to "read-listen" to familiar voices...

...thinks the comet whilst passing by a warm and brightly lit planet once again

i was thinking about time today, my time, and an image came to my mind: a long curve, seen as a work in progress. i also feel that, to me, instead of the straight line, a long curve is the shortest link between two points. it's as if the straight line is a short cut, and the long curve, like the curve of the world, is the real path.

i know i was reminded of this because "six feet under", namely its final sequence, was mentioned again in another thread. i don't know of a more beautiful and truthful way of putting what i've said above into images and music: a long curve of time breathing each character in, and each of them breathing in their own curve of time, which might cross or meet or overlap that of others.

"pilgrimage", i believe, has this idea and image at its root. it's a long journey, a long process, an intricate but rewarding progress, to get to your source/destination.

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

I was thinking about my road as well. I am sure that not the road is important, no matter if it is straight line or curve. I feel more as if I was space. Maybe like a sphere with its limits, more like a bubble in this universe with movement within. More like an atom with its electrons. They are spinning, changing orbits, exchanging energy, but this road is a circle or spiral, all around, all around.

I wish people perceived me as a written word. My body is a written word, so it is my imprint in this physical world, but the most important is my meaning within that word. Meaning available for other people and for me. Sometimes I do not believe in my source and destination. I think the idea of us as pilgrimage in this world comes from our perceiving of time. We, as human, can think about future and we, as only creatures in this world, are aware of coming death. That’s why we think about source and destiny as something important to us. It seems to me that this is not important, this is our illusion, our proud as a human, our selfishness as human.

with peace to this world,
anna maria k.

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"like a shadow, I am and I am not"

anna, you seem to think of our perception of time as something bad. i think exactly the opposite. being aware of our finite existence and of past, present and future, is the best way to give us perspective. time, that mighty sculptor. time helps us to see the essence of everything, in its nakedness. i can't think of a more humble process.

the character in "pilgrimage" is walking "within spirals of time", dreaming of getting to "the source", to family, to a sense of home, to similar hands, reading hands. dreams feel both like signs and riddles, and blood is making noise, but when it sees blood of its own it'll sing. it's like a gift: we wait for it to be delivered and, not knowing it has arrived, we dream of the one who'll receive it on the exact day it arrives. even in dreams when a feeling sees a feeling of its kind it'll sing. "the source"/destination (which is not at all the same as destiny) is love. the most humble of feelings. we all seek our source in this confused world.

may all of you on the undertow give and receive and treasure it. happy holidays.
fátima

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

i feel these excerpts i'm translating from peter handke's long and beautiful "poem to duration" might make my point clearer regarding my two previous posts on this thread:

"duration is something i've often felt, [...]
walking home, in the wee hours of the morning,
after a communion with my being.

that duration was what exactly?
a space of time?
something measurable? a certainty?
no, duration was a feeling,
the most elusive of all feelings. [...]

and i could define that feeling of duration
as something that happens in the act of listening,
in the act of understanding,
in being hugged,
in being wrapped up,
by what?, by another sun,
by a refreshing wind,
by a soft chord made of silence,
which leads to union and perfect
harmony of every dissonance.

"it extends itself for days, it lasts years":
goethe, my hero [...]
you got it right again:
duration has to do with years,
decades, with our lifetime;
duration is the feeling of life. [...]

the poem of duration is a poem of love." [...]
no anger whatsoever
just high waves in the sea.
beyond it a possibility
of clarity.
[...] "do i lack the pilgrimage to the places
of duration to feel its impulse? [...]
i've educated myself
in its waiting, [...]
and yet i have to travel to meet it, [...]
or get close to it to feel its breath.
duration lets me go out of myself and be. [...]
duration doesn't alienate,
it sets the right path for me."
[...]

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

"nothing is as silent as time
within the body. because it runs
with a rumor on the stones that cover us,
and through the loud disarray of some trees
which are our imaginary hairs. (...)
but we don't feel within the heart that we are
the dear sons of time and that, if today we love,
it was after we have loved yesterday.
time is silent and enigmatic,
dipped in the compact warmth of the womb.
kept within silence so thick,
time does and undoes life."

fiama hasse pais brandão
(1938-2007)
(translated from the portuguese)

her poetry/pilgrimage often touches "the source".

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance