The tires sag as we pack the car, Like a funeral march well-rehearsed A carnival so many years gone That left its relics rusting in the woods, Much like the car, where we take what we can, Leave what we can’t.
Remember when were children, our eyes wild and bright? When was that? Would you tell me again and again? Would you sing me to sleep, of how we wandered the shore? Like explorers, ravenous and relentless. Like we were children, our eyes so wild and bright.
I look over my shoulder, I thought they were so close behind, So close that I could hear footsteps in the path, I could smell the blossoms hang above us, As we march home, our eyes sunlit and full. I close my eyes and I can still see it, still feel it if I try.
And then it disappears; it’s chased after our love, Joined them where they have gone, Where it is still wild and bright. I wonder whether time remains to play one more time, Or is it rushing away? Is it already gone?
And whether it is over, whether not, And whether it amounts to anything, whether not, To have known you is to have known paradise. To have seen you is to have seen paradise. I hope you will guide me home, to where it is always wild and bright.
“Luxury” windows, dulled reflections, the clouds hang outside with a promise: never again look as beautiful as the day you left us. A stark white corner, with “luxury” finishes. Laughter once drifted through here like a feather, but now my sorrow is a stone. The house is empty like the space between your bones. We left it there, the pain, the tears, packed only joyful memories of you, of us. We hit the road - left that place and returned home. I hope you know not to haunt those walls; we’ve carried you here. I hope you know you’re not alone.
Photo from Sǒngsan Sansǒng (Fortress Mountain Mountain Fortress - one of my favorite place names ever) in Haman, Kyǒngsangnam-do, South Korea
I am loving me some banka from MYS vol 3, so I am probably going to keep going through them for the foreseeable future. I think I have yet another side project in the works on “drowned maidens” as a trope in MYS and the late seventh/early eighth century aesthetic worldview, but I’ll maybe talk about that ore in a few more poems when it begins to come up (because elegies for such maidens were a popular poetic topic, particularly when you passed by one of their graves - and there’s a bunch of them in vol 3, as elsewhere in MYS). For now, this poem is fairly straightforward, but also betrays a desire for some sort of contact with people beyond death that is not so common in banka (there’s usually more of a resignation to the fact that such contact is impossible, and a focus on the tragedy of such impossibility). It also gives us a glimpse into the ritual world of the late seventh/early eighth century, as far as it connected with the landscape and travel (i.e., movement across said landscape).
田口廣麻呂死之時刑部垂麻呂作歌一首
At the time of Taguchi no HIromaro’s death, one verse composed by Osakabe no Tarimaro
Not quite a hundred/on this Eighty-cornered Hill/were I to present an offering/might I be able to encounter/one who has passed on?
The euphemistic language “suginisi” for something akin to “passed on” to another realm, means that on the surface this does not necessarily need to be a poem about death, and death does not need to be spoken of directly - important, as I mentioned in my last post, in a world where death=pollution; given that words and the phenomena they signify were considered to be closely intertwined and the power of words evoked through incantation (poetry), this was likely a real concern. Banka (elegiac verse) do very rarely speak of death directly. Rather, the transition from the world of the living to that of the dead–the crossing of that border, so to speak–is aestheticized through the likening it to transitional spaces such as “journey” (see previous post), or here, a mountain. Mountains were considered the gateway to the land of the dead, as it was there that the dead were often buried. Not only that, however, but mountains connected the phenomenal world with that of the spirits/supernatural, which we see also come into play here. Mountains were always ritual sites; when on a journey, an offering needed to be presented on each mountain to show respect to the gods who occupied it/were it (really, both). Failing to do so could have disastrous consequences - see the Kojiki version of the Yamato Takeru no Mikoto tale. So here, up until the third ku, everything is straightforward–”tamuke” is what is expected on the top of the mountain (here, “saka” is “hill,” perhaps, but the ritual significance is the same). However, the place is not simply where Hiromaro is buried (although it may well be, thus inspiring the verse); its name “eighty-cornered hill” is important here. “Not quite a hundred” (momo tarazu) is a makura kotoba that leads into “yaso” (”eighty”) that makes up the first part of the place name Yasokumasaka “Eighty-Cornered Hill.” It is really just a set up/lead in (”dōshi” in Konishi Jin’ichi’s terminology) to “Yaso” since “yaso” is literally “eighty,” but in common parlance was really used just to mean “a lot.” So “Yasokumasaka” is really a “saka” (”hill”) with a lot of “kuma” (corners, turns, but could also mean dark/shady spots - spots where no light touches - the nuance of which could come into play with the idea that it is here that one might meet the spirits of the departed). In any event, there are a lot of twists, a lot of corners, a lot of dark spots on this particular hill, and so all the more opportunity/possibility that this might be a spot where the dead are passing by - or are stopping to rest, etc. I do sort of picture it more as there being a lot of intersecting paths, which I think makes sense for the top of a hill, and so this is an appropriate “meeting spot.” In any event, this intersection of all the “kuma,” in the poet’s formulation, is a place that might yield a “meeting” with a departed person, if one presents an “offering.” The editors of NKBZ propose this particular term “Yasokumazaka” might have actually referred to a mythical place thought to exist between the land of the living and the dead, but this is simple speculation - although certainly possible that this was such a designation, I think the idea here is that we are on a mountain, which is already such an “in-between space,” and the “limitless” corners/paths that intersect at this place present the possibility that spirits could be encountered as they passed through (”sugi” also, of course, in non-euphemistic context, meaning “to pass through”). The “kedasi” (”might”) of the fifth ku is also significant in this regard, because although it implies perhaps more “probability” than “possibility,” nevertheless betrays a certain uncertainty, as does the conditional “seba” of “tamuke seba” (”tamuke sureba” would be more of a definitive). Thus this place is a barrier between worlds, an “in-between space,” but the ability to cross that barrier/create a link between those two worlds is conditional, only possible and not assured.
On the surface, this seems to just be describing ritual procedure/belief, and one does not really get a sense of Tarimaro’s grief over Hiromaro’s passing that we get from Hitomaro’s poem about the anonymous corpse (3:426, previous post). We can surmise from the poem that contact with a departed “spirit” was possible at such a transitional place while it was still “transitioning” to the other world - and this is consistent with what we otherwise know of funerary practices at the time (or rather, shortly before this time, perhaps), particularly the “mogari no miya,” where the body of the deceased was placed for an indefinite period (depending on status of the deceased) before being buried, so that the spirit might choose to return to it. Only after the spirit was thought to have transitioned to the land of the dead was the body finally interred, and later, cremated. Thus as the spirit made its way from the body to the land of the dead, it may have been possible to make contact with it, if one followed proper procedure. Elsewhere in banka it is rare to see a desire or an admission of possibility of contact with the deceased, as noted above - and here, I think it only works because the death is recent, and the spirit was thought not to have fully crossed the “barrier” yet. Not until the rise of Pure Land Buddhism among the aristocracy in the Heian period do we really begin to see a belief in the ability to “meet again” after death among people - it is not something that appears to have been prevalent in MYS times/before. Rather, here I think the “meeting” of the departed has more to do with the waiting period for/attempt to call the spirit back to the body. Making contact could with the spirit at “Yasokumasaka” could help remind it to return to the land of the living, before it crossed into the world of the dead.
Tarimaro’s expression of grief is thus less overtly emotional, but is no less desperate, no less heart-wrenching - his reaction to the death of Hiromaro is not to mourn/grieve, but to deny its finality. This is of course, another very human way to handle such a tragedy, and something I’m sure a reader in any time can relate to. If only he could present an offering on Yasokumasaka, he might meet his dearly departed friend, and call him back to life. Then there would be no reason to grieve, no reason to mourn. This is a very different sort of banka - one I have yet to see elsewhere. Banka are usually all about the grieving process - and they may have a degree of denial - accusing the dead “how could you” and the like - but they rarely propose to do something about it. Of course, in the fifth ku’s “kedasi” there is the glimmer of realistic expectation that such a meeting may be beyond the possible, but on the whole it conveys an optimistic tone. It is not lamenting the impossibility by implying the possibility; “kedasi” indicates the speaker really believes he could meet Hiromaro’s departed spirit. Thus as readers/listeners to his verse we are keenly aware of the tragedy of his state of mind that denies the finality of death, and yet he is not - the pathos is not intrinsic to the verse in this case, but emerges in the reading process.
My favorite part about reading MYS verse, as I have said before, is how potently I feel the emotions of the poets all these centuries later, and I think this particularly true with banka. Although the grief, the desperation of the speaker’s voice is often what moves me with these, here I can’t help but pity Tarimaro and his lack of acceptance. He can’t “move on,” so to speak, thinking that Hiromaro’s spirit has yet to “move on,” and so he takes comfort in the possibility of ritual to bridge the gap and avert the finality of death. Such ritual practice was probably already dated in his day, having been replaced by Buddhist funerary rites, and yet there is solace, there is comfort to be found in old traditions. Generations of ancestors believed in such things, and if one is desperate enough, unwilling to accept enough, then such rituals are perhaps the only relief. That too, again, is very relatable, even to me, 1300 years later..
Of course I don’t have a photo of “Yasokumasaka,” given that we don’t know if it is a real place/where it might have been, but I offer up this photo taken this summer on an ancient mountain fortress in Haman, southern Kyǒngsang province, South Korea, because there was this odd rock arrangement in a clearing - that really could be anything, but I imagined it was a ritual space, each stone serving as an altar for the spirits of the mountain and the surrounding landscape. It may not be the special “intersection” that Yasokumasaka was, but as with any mountain (and this one is actually more of a “saka”), is an “in-between” space, where one might just meet a spirit wandering, searching for the gateway to the world of the dead.
I’m back - going to try to churn out at least a couple posts a week. I was in Korea for my research for the latter half of 2015… back stateside now, and hoping to start my days with a refreshing poem from MYS. I suppose this is not the most up-lifting poem(s) to start out with - but it spoke to me. Also, it’s a chōka/hanka combination, so there’s a lot of it, which somewhat? makes up for no posts for almost a year.
MYS 3:423-425
同石田王卒之時山前王哀傷作歌一首
As in the previous poems, upon the death of Ishida [Iwata] no Ōkimi, a poem composed by Yamasaki [Yamakuma] no Ōkimi as he grieved
tunosapapu/ipare no miti wo/asa sarazu/yukikemu pito no/omopitutu/kayopikemaku pa/pototogisu/naku satuki ni pa/ayamegusa/pana tatibana wo/tama ni nuki[nukimazipe]/kadura ni semu to/nagatuki no/sigure no toki pa/momitiba wo/worikazasamu to/papu kuzu no/iya toponagaku[kuzu no ne no iya toponaga ni]/yoroduyo ni/taezi to omopite[opobune no omopitanomite]/kayopikemu/kimi wo ba asu yu[kimi wo asu yu pa]/yoso ni kamo mimu
Horns creeping up/along the road to Iware [Craggy Land]/each morning, without fail/he had traveled/lost in his thoughts/as he went– In the fifth month, when the cuckoos cry out/the wild irises/and the flowering oranges/making them into beads on a string [stringing them both up]/shall I make a crown?/In the ninth month/at the time of early winter’s rains/the yellow and crimson leaves/shall I break them off to adorn my head?/Like winding kuzu vines/that stretch ever far and long [like the roots of the kuzu vines, stretching ever farther and longer]/for the myriad ages/this would not come to an end, he thought [like a great ship, he relied upon this belief]/as he traveled back and forth–As for my lord, from tomorrow [My Lord, from tomorrow]/will he be looking upon it from afar?
或本反歌二首
Two echo verses found in one text
隠口乃 泊瀬越女我 手二纒在 玉者乱而 有不言八方
komoriku no/patuse wotome ga/te ni makeru/tama pa midarete/ari to ipazu yamo
Surrounded by mountains/the maiden of Hatsuse/those beads she had wrapped about here wrist/have now scattered about/you might say…
河風 寒長谷乎 歎乍 公之阿流久尓 似人母逢耶
川風の寒き泊瀬を嘆きつつ君が歩くに似る人も逢へや
kapakaze no/samuki hatuse wo/nagekitutu/kimi ga aruku ni/niru pito mo ape ya
The river winds/are chilling in Hatsuse/sighing, sighing/as you walked along/will I ever meet another like you?
右二首者或云紀皇女薨後山前<王>代石田王作之也
As for the above two verses, in one text it says these were composed by Yamasaki no Ōkimi on behalf of Ishida no Ōkimi after Ki no hime miko passed away.
The main long verse hinges on the location of a road through Iware which connects Hatsuse and likely the Fujiwara capital, via which the subject of grief, Ishida[Iwata] no Ōkimi “commuted” [kayopikemu] (Scholars speculate the “Hatuse maiden” in the first hanka could be his wife, living out in the country, to whose home he commutes back and forth, from his post in the capital, along the Iware road). Interestingly, the poet is attempting to imagine the thoughts of Ishida as he traveled back and forth along the road–well particularly as he traveled up to the capital each morning–and they can’t get much more elegant (fūryū 風流) - Ishida was a man of true taste, it seems, or that’s how Yamasaki wants to present him, in any case. As he encounters irises and orange blossoms in the summer (fifth month=second month of summer by lunar calendar), he appreciates their beauty and his thoughts turn to fashioning them into a flower crown for his head; as he encounters autumn foliage, he again thinks the same thing. Recognizing the beauty of these things and seeking to adorn himself with it is perfectly fitting for a late-seventh century aesthetic - where you couldn’t get much more elegant (cf. Princess Nukata on spring/autumn, or any number of poems from this period about wanting to “kazasu”(adorn) oneself with something). There are quite a few makura kotoba here, which contribute interesting “stage-setting” that enables the poet to move through space, like Ishida is moving along the road: first, the scene of Iware is set by leading us into the word “Iwa” (boulder) via the epithet “horns creeping up”–thus we get an image of craggy, rocky cliffs, rising up into the sky–a mountain pass. Then comes the figure moving along the road each morning, and w are zoomed into his location, and finally his mind, and we see what he sees. The next makura kotoba comes following the two “thoughts” of Ishida (each ending with “to”), where a great length of time is translated into an image of ever stretching, ever inching forward kuzu vines. It is here where we get the sense of a sudden, unexpected death–or rather, one for which Ishida himself was unprepared. He had thought such journeys of his would continue indefinitely, stretching forward into the future far and long like kuzu vines, but such was not to be the case. There is no awareness of the ephemerality of life–just expectation that things will continue as they are indefinitely, until, of course, they don’t. That seems to be the real tragedy here–Ishida, a man of elegance, appreciated each aspect of his daily journey, but he didn’t appreciate that such journeys were limited, that they couldn’t go on forever. And so in the end, he who had traveled the road daily and knew it so well, can only look upon it from afar [yoso ni kamo mimu]. That’s a very powerful way to end the verse–he is no longer a part of the scenery, it goes on without him, and he is now only a distant observer (perhaps looking upon it from the underworld, which coincidentally, was located in the mountains). He didn’t expect, no one expected, for him to so abruptly vanish from the scene, but he was the one aspect of it that could not be renewed, could not be repeated. This is less a traditional banka, expressing grief over the loss of a loved one or a public figure, and more of a personal lament, that focuses on someone who was lost, but in doing so conveys a deep truth about human experience, and expands beyond the purview of a mere song of grief. Perhaps there is subtext here about impermanence, although perhaps not in a fully Buddhist sense, in the way the verse highlights the un-awareness of Ishida of the relatively fleeting nature of his existence, and the fact that it could not go on forever. Granted, the “yoroduyo ni taezi” type locution is common in banka which lament the fact that, particularly for rulers, no one thought they could die, everyone thought they would live and rule forever (well, not literally, but it’s a thing you say when a ruler dies), but here it’s not the cries of grieving loved ones who can’t believe the deceased is gone, but it’s actually a speculative thought of the deceased himself while he was alive (”yoroduyo ni taezi to omopite”) - he was the one who thought he’d be around forever. And now, of course, he is on the “outside” (”yoso”). Yamasaki doesn’t focus on his own grief. Rather, he enters Ishida’s head, to present an elegant, innocent man who can no longer travel the scenic road of which he had so been a part in life, and who in some way laments that fact in the end “from afar” (yoso). There are elements of Yamasaki’s voice that bring us out and remind us he is speculating, projecting for us what Ishida must have been thinking - but the overall effect is that we are more aware of the tragedy of Ishida’s unawareness of impermanence and his abrupt disappearance from the scene than we are of Yamasaki’s own grief over the loss of Ishida. Of course, Yamasaki is bereaved, but we also get the sense that Ishida’s passing has inspired an acute awareness in him of the speed at which the everyday can become precious, and even when each moment of the mundane is savored in a most elegant way–it can all end just like that, leaving one forever “on the outside.”
The hanka obviously inspire confusion, since there is a footnote suggesting they perhaps don’t even belong to this chōka but instead were written on a different occasion, grieving a different death. So people didn’t even know in the eighth century, how can we? Well, the footnote may be right, but I think the imagery and themes present in the hanka match the chōka pretty well, even if they were not composed together (but I kinda think they were). First, “komoriku no” has an echo of “tuno sapapu” from the chōka, and although Hatsuse is not mentioned in the chōka, geographically it can make sense that was where Ishida was coming from along the Iware road. The maiden is again, not mentioned in the chōka, but I think suddenly shifting to not only giving us an explanation for the “commuting” but also to the grief of one left behind, that is not in fact the poet himself, is fitting for a hanka. “Jewels/beads” (tama) wrapped around her wrist echoes the “tama ni nuki” of the chōka, and is a striking image for death - that the man she had kept “wrapped around her wrist” is now gone, scattered like beads from a string. The other obvious connection, is of course, that “tama” (bead) is cognate with “tama” (spirit), i.e. his spirit has left her, scattered away. The ending is a little strange, “might one say?/you might say..” is a little ambivalent, but perhaps is used to fill out the syllables, and further has an emphatic, grieving tone with the “yamo” at the end. One can feel almost a desperation in the ambivalent tone as well, as if the poet, and perhaps also the maiden, are struggling to find the words to describe what has happened, the describe what they are feeling. The second hanka is a bit more straightforward, a lament that one will never see the likes of Ishida walking along the road again. Everything in the entire verse modifies “pito” (person) in the final ku, which is again fitting - because it emphasizes there will never be another ‘person’ like him (”niru”). Hatsuse appears again here, this time as place of cold “river winds,” which accords another layer to the figure traveling back and forth along the road. Further, the “nagekitutu” suggests a feeling Ishida, one consumed with love for Hatsuse no otome, perhaps, but also moved by the nature around him, which echoes the content of the chōka, but from a distance, rather than from inside Ishida’s head.
Together I found these verses a tour de force - there’s no heavy-handed lamenting of impermanence here, no desperate shouting about how he wasn’t supposed to have gone, how can he have left the world behind, etc. Rather, this is a different sort of tribute, one I think you see emerging in the late seventh and early eighth centuries and definitely in Hitomaro’s work, where the deceased is the focus, rather than those left behind, necessarily, although there is of course both here. By speculating on Ishida’s mindset, Yamasaki is of course both avoiding talking about his own grief and conveying the sense of the second hanka, i.e. that he will never meet another like him, but this is done in a subtle way that is both appealing and refreshing when compared to earlier more ritualistic literal “coffin-pulling” poems (banka). There is in any event a lot of striking imagery, use of makura kotoba, and deep sentiments here.
Feels good to be reading MYS again. I was interested in maybe talking a little bit about the little “one text says” parts of this verse, because I think they are remarkably informative and striking “alternatives,” but for now I think I’ve gone on long enough about these verses.
The photo is from when I climbed Yongmunsan in Kyǒnggido back in October during the height of the foliage. I figured, mountain road, crimson leaves, it sort of works. One thing I do miss about being in Korea – mountain climbing on demand, any time, any where.
gOD IM SO SORRY I KEEP KILLING MY BABY BOI IM cRYING … oh and Fun Fact: Annemie’s mother died of the same disease Annemie is currently dying of, and his father(background) and Reese are the lead doctors trying to cure him,,, i am so sorry
Summary: Eleven returns to the World Tree after going back in time.
Word count: 824
Eleven listened to the sound of water trickling into a teapot and closed his eyes.
His bare skin felt cold in the morning light. His heart felt like a shriveled-up burden in his chest. His mouth tasted faintly of shit and self-hatred.
He closed his eyes again and was about to turn over in bed when he heard footsteps across the floorboard and feet stepping into his room.
“Eleven?”
The whisper was gentle, gentler than he probably deserved.
“Mm,” Eleven hummed, half-awake.
“I brought you some tea…”
Serena tried to walk forward, but she was trembling in her shoes. Even the dishes in her hands quivered and Eleven shook his head, gesturing for her to stay away.
She seemed fine without further encouragement, nodding and setting the things on the table near the door. Serena stepped out and shut the door behind her.
It felt good to be in silence again. Eleven took in a steady breath and listened again to the sound of voices and leaves rustling gently on a summer breeze outside.
He’d been trying to rest for hours. He couldn’t sleep. He was so afraid of closing his eyes and having them never open again. Or of seeing himself on the inside of his eyelids, shadows of his own murder flashing in front of him. Seeing green made him feel like he was there all over again, and a blade was coming for him, and goddess, the fact that anyone was even willing to talk to him right now must have been something of a miracle. He wouldn’t want to talk to himself.
When Eleven imagined Erik, Rab, or Gemma mourning the other him, he felt like puking. Or crying. Or both, though he didn’t have the appetite for it. It was like the ability to feel anything about the experience had been torn from his body.
Eleven rose to his feet, walked to the door, and picked up the dish Serena had left out for him. He walked back to his bed and sat down. He placed the platter on his lap and slowly dug his way through it.
There was soup here. It smelled like something he’d have back in Cobblestone, something he would have eaten a whole lifetime ago. When he was still himself and not a fragment of a broken person.
He brought the spoon to his mouth and tried to eat it, but as soon as the fragrance touched his nostrils and he felt the warm liquid on his lips, he recoiled and dipped the spoon back into the tea. No, it was too fresh. Everything. Everything about existing felt like so much of a chore right now and the last thing he wanted was to be remembered of a life that wasn’t worth living.
He tried the tea, and when he drank it, it tasted like hot water. His lips curled in disgust and he poured the rest into his gullet.
There was someone out there who still cared for him, someone who wouldn’t want to see him turned into nothing but skin and bones, because this was the longest he had gone without something to eat and he could feel his shoulder blades through his shirts. He gripped his side with his large hand, able to thumb down the rungs of his ribs like a cursed instrument.
It wasn’t normal. But then, no one was expecting him to be normal after everything he had gone through.
Having emptied his tea, Eleven set it on the bedside table and looked around his room again. With nothing else to do, he decided to lay down again. Maybe daydream. Or manage rest for the first time in what felt like a fucking year.
Eleven closed his eyes, but the pang of hunger still wrung his gullet and made him clutch at his skin.
He could get through this. He could get through anything.He would survive. He’d already survived Mordegon before. When the World Tree had been destroyed.
And it was still standing now. Even if Calasmos was around, he could deal with that, he could handle that. He could make everything okay again.
He could…
Eleven sniffled and reached up, but his face still felt dry. He kicked the wall in front of him and grasped his hair in his hands, tugging at it. He’d really fucked up now. What would mum think, seeing him like this?
She was probably worrying heaven and back about him right now. Eleven sighed and closed his eyes, still mulling over that thought when he heard a voice at the door again, whispering to have a word or two with him.
Eleven cast aside his groaning to respond with a tired “come in,” his voice dry and cracked after who knows how long with no use.
“And if Sofia and Marc are lying in a heap of wreckage right now?” Anne demanded. “Where would God’s poetry be then? Where was the poetry in Alan’s death, Emilio?” “God knows,” he said, and there was in his voice both an admission of defeat and a statement of faith.
Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow: A Novel, page 288). Bolded emphases added.
My grandfather passed from Covid and we had a funeral. I was never particularly close to him and honestly didn’t know much about him even though I saw him usually once a week (before covid). At his funeral everyone talked about him, and I found out he was actually a pretty cool guy.
I found myself wishing to have known him more, but I stopped myself before the thought could get too far.
I came to the realization that I’m not going to mourn the loss of something I didn’t even have.
I think that’s a good idea and might help someone else in a hard time.
Try not to spend your life mourning the loss of something you never really had in the first place.
“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”- CS Lewis, a grief observed. This last week has been really hard. I’m emotionally exhausted and wish I had some great thing to say but I have nothing.
My first Month of Fear piece! I had a lot of fun doing this, between the textures and the spooky gothic lady. The dress is inspired by I Do Declare’s amazing designs. See my Patreon for process images. Post link
Made notes for the poem that I’m writing on for my essay due on Thursday. Also, finally got the chance to read Freud’s writing on “Mourning and Melancholia.” A dense, but really thought provoking read. I love it when my research for one class overlaps with another. I think it just means that I have a really strong interest in a topic. In this case, it’s memory.
This laboring of ours with all that remains undone, as if still bound to it, is like the lumbering gait of the swan.And then our dying—releasing ourselves from the very ground on which we stood— is like the way he hesitantly lowers himself
into the water. It gently receives him, and, gladly yielding, flows back beneath him, as wave follows wave, while he, now wholly serene and sure, with regal composure, allows himself to glide.
