bhikku: archives

3rd july 2006

He always wakes up far too early, jolting himself into consciousness with the idea that he has some important task on hand, something that he needs to supervise or see to completion; but he can never remember what it might be. He gets up from his rancid bed and wanders from room to room, from passage to stairwell. He goes from couch to couch, pulling the ears of the sleepers, mumbling encouraging phrases into their blank faces, but none of them ever wakes; not one of them can ever wake. They are stacked in the rooms like slaves in a barracoon; more of them arrive every hour. He had his own room once - a throne even - but now he's sidelined, a caretaker, sleeping among the bodies wherever he can find a space.
He carries a tattered list, a catalogue, the newest entries scrawled hastily on the endpapers; he knows he should check through and make sure no-one's missing. But it would take weeks, months, he cannot rouse himself to the job.
He waits, he is waiting; he longs for the visit of another Orpheus, another Virgil leading another poet.

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6th july 2006

Old William Halliday . . . told the story of how Squire Sadler Gale of Bulwich House at Allington made himself wings and flew off the garden wall. 'Watch I vlee!' he cried to the people. Then he dashed down into the horsepond.

- Francis Kilvert, 1875

In a year the wings were finished; and, on a morning appointed, the maker appeared furnished for flight on a little promontory: he waved his pinions awhile to gather air, then leaped from his stand, and in an instant dropped into the lake. His wings, which were of no use in the air, sustained him in the water, and the prince drew him to land, half dead with terror and vexation.

- Dr Johnson, Rasselas, 1759

The father - though that word is hollow now -
cried "Icarus! Where are you?" And that cry
echoed again, again till he caught sight
of feathers on the surface of the sea.

- Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7 AD

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14th july 2006

The Name of a River