It is easiest to notice on some winter
afternoons, late, that a moment is passing which doesn’t belong to the same day
as those surrounding it. The light then is unaccountably different, as if it
came from a sun much younger or much older than the one that will set in a
short while. I can only assume that this moment belongs to a day which, for
some crime or some act of unimaginable heroism, was torn to pieces and flung
across time. Every moment of that day sank of itself towards dusk, where it was
less likely to be noticed. Such a moment does not flee with the hour that
encompassed it. It may come again and again, bewildered and looking for the
whole of which it is a part.
People look up when
such a moment comes, expecting to see something which is never there. The
artist’s line goes off at a different angle when it comes; the poet’s word
won’t come at all. Numbers don’t add up as they ought. Once, history was other than we
know it to be. It is the lack of this day which has made our lives radically
false.
At the end of time,
I’ve been told and I sometimes believe, only the moments from this one
dismembered day will remain, waiting to be reconstructed.
No comments:
Post a Comment