Herbst

Ontem, depois de um inverno esquizofrênico em que as árvores não sabiam se deviam deixar cair as folhas ou não, já que calor e frio se alternavam como se dançassem, voltei para encontrar uma cidade em que o sol brilhava somente através das nuvens, e sobre uma chuva de folhas de todas as árvores - hoje estão todas nuas - pelo meio da qual dançavam mais andorinhas do que achei que existissem.

Em homenagem às hirondelles, do Livro das Imagens do Rilke:

Die Blätter fallen, fallen wie von weit,
als welkten in den Himmeln ferne Gärten;
sie fallen mit verneinender Gebärde.

Und in den Nächten fällt die schwere Erde
aus allen Sternen in die Einsamkeit.

Wir alle fallen. Diese Hand da fällt.
Und sieh dir andre an: es ist in allen.

Und doch ist Einer, welcher dieses Fallen
unendlich sanft in seinen Händen hält.

Travei

Dream of the other



Light.

All around you, and red like your mother's womb. It's a soft light, but so all-encompassing it might as well be blinding; there is a room, and you are sitting on a chair, or perhaps the edge of a bed. You know that. But to see it is as impossible as in absolute darkness.

Darkness is there when you close your eyes, or perhaps just a deeper shade of red. No longer the red you don't remember from before you were born, but the red of old blood on a rusty nail. Now, how do you know the colour of old blood on a rusty nail, on barbed wire, on wood?

The question fades from your brain as the light does not, because you suddenly notice there's someone else in the bright red room. Their breathing is loud, the ragged breathing one associates with heavy labour or acute stress. The smell of sweat clogs your nostrils, rank and warm, not the slow gummy sweat of someone who's nervous but a new, salty sweat. That settles it, then.