Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Simone Weil 47


If my eyes are bandaged, then I'm blinded by what offers time to heal. There was no back-draft of a mother's ashes, though the wreath landed upside down in the ocean. We could hardly see the mountains for the buildings, but Diamond Head wore cloud shadows til they dissolved. Afterwards, we talked sports in the boat, naming players as we circled the now-drowning ashes. My mother's remain in a closet, awaiting transport. Is it flesh that burns, or time? Memory is back-draft, grit in the mouth, a scattering presence without sound. “Diamond Head dreadnaught,” she wrote, after another scattering. We towed in a boat that lost its steering. It's a fable, Joe said, describing a film about fixed ideas. Death fixes us all right; we feel the swell, but white water flashes farther in. We re-entered the harbor, Point Panic to our left.

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