I don't have time for a proper post but I felt obliged to put something up here. I wrote this one day and after I read over it when it was finished I realised someone else was using my hands...
And then they started. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It was like they were completely separate entities even though they were joined at the waist.
They sang like angels and moved like devils, in the end they just sank back into the mould that had birthed them and all they were became ashes.
They had left no legacy, they had never even started something that might be recognised in some reporter’s sad, unpublished journal somewhere ages and ages hence. Nothing was left, not a trace of their existence or their fabulous accomplishment.
What comes from nothing is always nothing. But in between the emergence of nothing from nothing a small glimpse of something can be seen. When one is privy to that kind of immense, immeasurable beauty, there is never a word in the vernacular accurate enough to describe this phenomenon. It’s like the birth of the messiah but then the child dies upon entering the world. The potential for something that might save, inspire, nourish. Then it suddenly dies like a lost opportunity or the train that’s missed by a hare’s breath.
Appreciating that is the hardest task of a human being. Seeing something that we would devote our entire lives to disappear in an instant, almost before we could recognise it, not hating this thing is the hardest duty we may have the misfortune and the blessing to endeavour. When we stop hating it we learn to look at it as we might a piece of fine art that we can’t quite understand through all the pretension. We know it’s good, we like it for our own reasons, but the pretension surrounding it obscures our ability to love it.
Think of the ballet. See the dancers, weaving, spinning, turning and leaping, taking their cues. The costumes swirl like wine in a connoisseur’s glass. The sequins sparkle and entrance you. You can’t think on anything except the dancers, their hair knotted tight. The eyes in their soft porcelain faces never lift to meet yours. You yearn but they do not look up. Not even a stolen glance. It begins to burn you, but you can’t move because watching them is the closest you can get to their beauty without breaking them. Delicate little animals, nothing can be said to them or around them, dancing to music like deaf mutes, unspeaking graceful bodies, soulless.
And then they started. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It was like they were completely separate entities even though they were joined at the waist.
They sang like angels and moved like devils, in the end they just sank back into the mould that had birthed them and all they were became ashes.
They had left no legacy, they had never even started something that might be recognised in some reporter’s sad, unpublished journal somewhere ages and ages hence. Nothing was left, not a trace of their existence or their fabulous accomplishment.
What comes from nothing is always nothing. But in between the emergence of nothing from nothing a small glimpse of something can be seen. When one is privy to that kind of immense, immeasurable beauty, there is never a word in the vernacular accurate enough to describe this phenomenon. It’s like the birth of the messiah but then the child dies upon entering the world. The potential for something that might save, inspire, nourish. Then it suddenly dies like a lost opportunity or the train that’s missed by a hare’s breath.
Appreciating that is the hardest task of a human being. Seeing something that we would devote our entire lives to disappear in an instant, almost before we could recognise it, not hating this thing is the hardest duty we may have the misfortune and the blessing to endeavour. When we stop hating it we learn to look at it as we might a piece of fine art that we can’t quite understand through all the pretension. We know it’s good, we like it for our own reasons, but the pretension surrounding it obscures our ability to love it.
Think of the ballet. See the dancers, weaving, spinning, turning and leaping, taking their cues. The costumes swirl like wine in a connoisseur’s glass. The sequins sparkle and entrance you. You can’t think on anything except the dancers, their hair knotted tight. The eyes in their soft porcelain faces never lift to meet yours. You yearn but they do not look up. Not even a stolen glance. It begins to burn you, but you can’t move because watching them is the closest you can get to their beauty without breaking them. Delicate little animals, nothing can be said to them or around them, dancing to music like deaf mutes, unspeaking graceful bodies, soulless.
Ha, nice accompanying picture.
ReplyDeleteThis is a nugget of knowledge I find myself forgetting too often. Thank you for such a beautiful reminder.
Such a wonderfully written post. And so true, some beauty is only temporary. And some beauty is only becasue it is temporary.
ReplyDelete