Beauty will save the world
— Dostoyevsky
(24)
Outwardly, this spring was like any other
We know we are the hazard.
Haven't the dead stars foretold it?
And yet, before any of it,
there was this;
and still,
there is this...
It doesn’t do to rush to conclusions, you know
Now, as then,
we walk carelessly
through the dune,
the warm hill
holding its hair
still
…that bitter sense of freedom
which comes of total deprivation
Let's say possible,
lets say
closer
to sunrise and sunset
…attics and cellars that had not been disinfected
by the official sanitary service
Let's say we’re gulls,
swooping our spyglass
over the debris
This happened, for instance, when they fell
to making plans
implying that the plague had ended
All the Ryanair passengers
opting for uncovered smiles
Have a nice day
We number our loves
and the deaths,
and our days
…like a flood bursting the dykes, the turbulent onrush
in his wrists and temples of the fever latent
in his blood for several days past
And feverish dreams
blend into the white noise
of waves
Each of us has the plague within him;
no one, no one on earth, is free from it
Time drops over the landscape
over the object of our lives
like an immaculate shroud
Only at night did he venture forth
to make some small purchases,
and on leaving the shop he would roam furtively
the darker, less-frequented streets
Wariness is a window pane
between face-
covered pedestrians
…a cruel leisure,
exile without redress…
In other zones,
mountains are burning
a weekend of floods
one widowed hand
holding the hand of the dead
And we remember
that
for most of us,
life
is simply short dashes
between the dots
of love
It could only be
the record of what had had to be done
Frictionless days
Rainwater
in the tank, all brack
Bones in the dark
bleating in the singing air
alive-alive-o
It can lie dormant for years and years
in furniture and linen-chests…bides its time
in bedrooms, cellars, trunks
and bookshelves…
Everywhere, elements of us,
the sea blue as an eye,
God's way
of breaking our hearts
Afric McGlinchey
The italicised fragments are from The Plague by Albert Camus.
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