.
A point is fixed at the
intersection between the
personal and the rest
of the cosmos, and that
nexus is the source
of the flood of speech
the desperate polyphony
of conflicting meanings
empties continually into,
all signs condensed into
a single line leading
out from this dust mote sized
fraction of the history of
a very tiny star into the
silence everywhere around it
Wolf 359, the orange object just above the center of the image, a red dwarf star located in the constellation Leo 7.8 light years from earth, one of the faintest and lowest-mass stars known, with a photosphere temperature low enough for chemical compounds to form and survive: astrophotograph by Klaus Hohmann, 2006
Hot spring, Leirhnjúkur, Iceland: photo by Andreas Tile, 1996
A point is fixed at the
intersection between the
personal and the rest
of the cosmos, and that
nexus is the source
of the flood of speech
the desperate polyphony
of conflicting meanings
empties continually into,
all signs condensed into
a single line leading
out from this dust mote sized
fraction of the history of
a very tiny star into the
silence everywhere around it
Wolf 359, the orange object just above the center of the image, a red dwarf star located in the constellation Leo 7.8 light years from earth, one of the faintest and lowest-mass stars known, with a photosphere temperature low enough for chemical compounds to form and survive: astrophotograph by Klaus Hohmann, 2006
this is really cool as well.
ReplyDelete"the monumental puncta"
and all that might mean.
whole societies have risen and fallen
on the strength or weakness of a given puncta and its maintenance..
this is a really startlingly good
piece of work
the paradox
of knowing the actual history of a star
where its individual flames lept
something
this is good Tom.
I enjoyed that ride so much I rode it three times
ReplyDeletetom
ReplyDeleteyou are killing me
many times over: again
always
junkets just as autumn hits
how could you
do this
to us
thank you
***
Lanny,
ReplyDeleteThere must be some bit of fool's grail built into the punctum, a small hole made by pricking. Everything would seem to be contained in your term "maintenance", certainly apropos. If either the near point or the far point (personal/cosmic) collapses, everything is sucked into the blind spot in the center. The great aporia of the society in which we do live: the pungent dark aspect of the history of a life or maybe of a society, the blind spot of the punctum caecum, where the sun never shines.
Otto,
Thanks; maybe takes a bit to get underway but I think you start to feel the swoop around the middle.
Again, muchas gracias for feeling it.
Christina,
So you understand. Same old phantom presence killing us softly, a sharper prick in the heart every autumn. The ghost of somebody's folly still haunting our sweet dreams.
(Love your pristine new blog!)
We are tiny little stars in this huge universe filled with so many different sensations: love, hate, isolation, indifference, sadness, joy, madness... And yet, every one of us is a unique little star.
ReplyDeleteLucy,
ReplyDeleteHowever large our existences may seem to ourselves, with all our little problems and involvements, when one is able to pull back a bit and view things from a distance, each of these lives dwindles to an almost unnoticeable moment in space and time, a tiny point... And if you are old and nearsighted as I am, it is always easy to miss this point.
I love the last two stanzas especially! Thankyou.
ReplyDeleteL.
Thanks Leigh. I guess the idea was to have those lines, from the third stanza on, draw the mind much as a kind of thread or trail in the dark, with minimal advance clue as to where it might lead (not that, Wizard of Oz-like, I had any better clue myself).
ReplyDelete