Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Whoever is nowhere is nobody


A Stellar Shell. This massive bubble in space is the result of gas that is being shocked by the expanding blast wave from a supernova. Called SNR 0509-67.5, the sphere is the visible remnant of a powerful stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth.

There is no where in you a paradise that is no place
     and there
You do not enter except without a story.
To enter there is to become unnameable.

Whoever is there is homeless for he has no door     
and no identity
with which to go out and to come in. 

Whoever is nowhere is nobody, and therefore cannot exist     
except as unborn:
No disguise will avail him anything

Such a one is neither lost nor found.

But he who has an address is lost.

They fall, they fall into apartments and are     
     securely established!

They find themselves in streets.  
They are licensed
To proceed from place to place
They now know their own names
They can name several friends and know
Their own telephones must some time ring.

If all telephones ring at once, 
if all names are shouted at     
     once and
all cars crash at one crossing:
If all cities explode and fly away in dust
Yet identities refuse to be lost.  
There is a name and number     
     for everyone.

There is a definite place for bodies, there are pigeon holes     
     for ashes:
Such security can business buy!

Who would dare to go nameless in so secure a universe?
Yet, to tell the truth, only the nameless are at home in it.

They bear with them in the center of nowhere the unborn     
     flower of nothing:
This is the paradise tree.  
It must remain unseen until words     
     end and arguments are silent.

-Thomas Merton, "The Fall",  In the Dark Before Dawn, pp. 184-185  

2 comments:

  1. 2Cents

    A happyhappy

    Gods and Goddesses
    inhabit there darkness -

    Look there !
    there they are -

    Perhaps
    that is why
    most babies
    are created
    in darkness -

    A happy birthday
    and
    give the dog a bone -

    Happy happy

    Amen


    ReplyDelete