Poem of the Dunes
As best as he could, he would tell of these times, with a neutral voice, without a grudge. Whom could he resent anyway?
//
he held all the energy tight
in a minute gesture
obstinate
but one that would be erased anyhow
he knew it
just like
his hand could dig inside the pile
his hand without seeing
extract from the heap
he would grow up by the edges
//
it was no longer himself he was searching for
for a long time
it was no longer important enough
but like something
that would have been inside him too
and it seemed more simple
to look for the flaw
in what was closest to him
//
it was
as if
inside
something was crumbling
in the dark
as he gradually moved forward
without seeing
where he was setting foot
the outline he would perceive
at great cost
he could not invest it
this could last
several days
weeks
longer even
what precluded
did not depend on him
there was nothing for it but to wait
//
sure
words went a bit further than hands
but their grasp was less firm
there were always bits that would escape
besides inside
the landscape moved
when at work
he would say the dunes are moving
or
the sands are shifting inside
one would have to be dead for a while
and he would laugh
//
he would say the sands in the sands
inside
always a dune
after the one just passed
he retained nothing
in his hand weighed only
the weight of air
as if he could not keep anything
in the passing
himself passing
in a current too slow
or too quick
//
he would start again from the same obscure point
as he strived to do the same walk in the
dunes
approximatively
hoping eventually
to exhaust
(word and throat knotted, or him and the word almost twisted twined to the point that they would not untangle themselves enough for both to breathe)
he was difficult to follow
because of that
he would seldom communicate
and he was regarded with pity
really
he did not know how to live
//
he would say
a bag of skin
over something opaque
and shapeless and brittle
what remains is to grasp
like at the edge of words
a little every day
may it just be this
but a little
air and fear
//
He was done.
There was hardly any progress, only an outline, a bit more precise maybe, dug around an area.
The rest would keep moving.
And in the long run, even what was charted would start drifting again, first slowly, and then more and more obviously.
To say that he was done with it was just a way to arrange things temporarily.
