Tell me where you stand and I'll tell you what you think. Show me your feet, and I'll know your eyes. Can you see the strings? Do you even feel the pull of a brain interpreting your world from a wealth of data only a dram of which you know? The kitchen is relative to my hunger, is it not? Can you free your will from your environment? Can you go underwater and not long for air? Can you see a sunset and not layer it with your past? Tell me you can and I'll come sit at your feet.
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A few months ago I had the pleasure of viewing the performance below, live, from about thirty feet away. I struggle to recall anything I've seen first hand as beautiful as Lucia and her violin, playing this song, live, just as you see below. And I remember thinking, and this is how my brain works, but I remember thinking, this is how I want to die, this is how I want my last moment to be, that violin taking me into the fade to black, not in a recording or imagination, but to have rented the hall and the performers, to sit front and center and to be able to time one's last minutes to the song. This is what I thought and there was no shame.
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The concert and the thought occurred before my reacquaintance with Keats or any knowledge of his love for Fanny Brawne nor, of course, of any letters written between the two. So when I read the excerpt below (Keats to Brawne), it made perfect sense to me, as it does now:
excerpt:
I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute. I hate the world; it batters too much the wings of my self-will, and would I could take a sweet poison from your lips to send me out of it.
Isle of Wight, July 25
12 comments:
Each sunset feels new, like its the first that i have seen.
Many years ago, when I first started traveling to California, two hours west, I thought, what a hardship, this time change I have to endure, work around. Then I started traveling to the UK, six hours east, arriving in London at 6am local time or midnight my time--just in time to catch a train and go to work, which was the only way to combat jet lag. From that point forward, the time difference to California didn't seem like such a big deal.
beautifully written - and I always love Keats.
I took a mental health break but am taking baby steps to get back.
This is terribly, horribly beautiful. I ache so nicely now. I'm going to visit your blog again. What piquant writing!
"...Can you free your will from your environment? Can you go underwater and not long for air? Can you see a sunset and not layer it with your past? Tell me you can and I'll come sit at your feet."
Those who can tell can't get past the crowd sitting at their feet. Those sitting at their feet want those to be those who can tell.
What prose and poetry stream from if-only, anywhere but here, any time but now, anybody but me! Only music and silence consume utterly. (is this true??)
Have you ever feared losing the writing spirit -- a life, an identity, a well of nurture -- if you lost your pain? I did for a long time, fear. to. lose.
You got the California experience, Trée! Cool! (I hope)
The excerpt. What exquisite insight. If the world is quite unbearable, what wounds more is what I believe I must be to live, to survive in the world.
I sit at the feet of those who reveal to me the illusion of belief, and leave at intermission, to go play with the gdogs.
I second Kass's comment.
Kass, welcome to DT. Extra credit for using the word 'piquant.' :-)
C, I always enjoyed my trips to California, especially the central coast around San Luis Obispo.
Cat, thanks for the kind words.
Jasmine, I'm envious.
I just wrote an idiotic comment. Sorry. Let's just say I understand, Tree. I do. Sometimes there is a fine line between life and death and beauty.
xo
erin
No worries Erin. Just glad to have you around. :-)
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