Monday, August 06, 2007

Our own to open and close.

When I was a boy the library was a portal to worlds I could never have imagined from my redoubt in the forested mountains. Librarians were Goddesses to my small mind, purveyors of food for thought, of Life itself. Heroes, fearless and grand.

To my amazed wonder I found there were libraries beyond my horizon, waiting only for my presence to open their doors and their covers for me to enter in. And the Earth itself its all its fearsome beauties lay open for anyone to find and claim a part of it if only it were known. Yes, even ones own steps and footprints along the banks of the Orinoco River. The high walls of Tripoli from which the unfortunate fall. Starborn cats above the Yellow Sea. Yes, the dead, the guides to the future, mirror-holders of the ages, Virgils and wanderers. Further, farther.

Let me sail, let me sail,
let the Orinoco flow,
Let me reach, let me beach
On the shores of Tripoli.
Let me sail, let me sail,
Let me crash upon your shore,
Let me reach, let me beach
Far beyond the Yellow Sea.

From the North to the South,
Ebudæ into Khartoum,
From the deep sea of Clouds
To the island of the moon,
Carry me on the waves
To the lands I've never been,
Carry me on the waves
To the lands I've never seen.

I await my visa to the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns. I can't go there well unless I have a mind open to the new. Many don't seem to like the new, perfering the stale and the trite, an evening with the perky and the peppy, an evening with Enya rather than a time where one looks back to Indians dying by the riverside, drowned, snake-bitten, wasted from jungle fevers. No, none of that in the suburbs. It's a crazy life. Who could have dreamed all this to be possible? And what a shame to see those who can't see it is.

The sun is shining, the berries on the bushes are ripe, I have my bucket. I said "O, what is this life?"

She said:


I owe no librarian. Sail away.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why aren't you working on your glossary so people can, "Look it up."

Jane

Dag said...

Ha, I grabbed the girl on this fine summer day and we went berry picking in the sunlight. I know all that stands between us and the crazy world of jihadi killers and the Left dhimmi fascist take-over of the Western world is me but sometimes I just gotta take a break and hope you all survive my absence.

The best berries were big and deep purple bordering on black, lush and firm, tart and sweet, bursting across my tongue and squirting juice when I chomped 'em. My finger-tips are stained and my lips are reddish blue like a Punk's kool-aid dye job. I have a gallon of berries ready to put away for winter; I have enough left over to make a pie to please my friends.

I spend much of my time collecting details of Islam and fascism for the manuscripts I'm editing and polishing. Today was for berry-picking. Maybe this is a sign that I'm a fanatic, that everything I do is related solely to my narrow interest: If I don't do this, and if I'm not successful in my efforts to stop Islam and Left fascism from winning the time, then in two generations there will not be a day for a man and a woman to go picking berries on a sunny day. At best, people will sulk in a state of resentment knowing that things used to be different in some fundamental way but it won't really be clear in what way, in the way of freedom to pursue ones own life as one will. This will be just a story that won't have any resonance. This:

Many, many years ago a woman in Khazakstan said "Love is evil!"

She meant that to indulge in what we call Romantic love is evil, to choose ones own spouse is evil, that it goes against the order of the group, that it is a defiance of the will of Allah; and this in a Communist country separated from mainstream Islam for 50 years at the time. We'll have lingering ideas of our loss, but none of it will make any real sense. Grandparents will grouse, and kids will sulk. There will be no books, and no one will ever leave the mind of the group to fling oneself at random in a strange land. No discovery, no curiosity, no exploration; there will be fear and conformity and sullenness, the triumphant merely trudging along in grim satisfaction that things are ruined and everyone is miserable but the few God-intoxicated fanatics who love the bitterness.

Tomorrow I return full-blast to Islam and its evil roots and flowering hatreds. This warm evening it's a walk across the park to the wild roses and a gentle breeze before bed-time.

truepeers said...

Heh, if you really want to impress your friends, pick up some apples to slice into that pie! Nature has given us two perfect pie combos: that one, and strawberry and rhubarb. Turn this into a perfect metaphor for the global situation and I'll bake the pie!

Dag said...

We'll get pie in the sky when we die. Till then let's hope my crusty but benign self can make us something edible for the here and now.

truepeers said...

Not bad. The problem with humanity, if you want to get right down to it, is that there are just not enough blueberry pie eating contests, the kind where your hands are tied...