Fictions Disguised as Autobiography
Night is a seamstress of stars
whose sparkle she sews together
without thread or knot or hem
into a glittering stichless seam
tucking us in nearer to space.
After Hans Dieter Zimmermann (indirectly quoting Martin Heidegger)
Die Nacht ist die Näherin der Sterne, wie die Kinder sagen; sie fügt zusammen ohne Naht und Saum und Zwirn; sie ist die Näherin, weil sie nur mit der Nähe arbeitet.
Loss of memory short-term —
a boon in disguise!
Attention then falls
on what’s in the eyes.
Recollection, remembrance
and their coeval, regret,
make up together
the other great threat.
Wisdom if it comes
means cutting the cord.
Breaking with memories
brings as well the reward
of recognition
won at long last
that the things of youth
are things of the past.
***
I am a bad Buddhist, actually not a Buddhist at all. But if a hypothetical sophomore were obliged to decorticate this poem for a classroom exercise, he or she would want to begin or at least finish with the observation that its author had been influenced by Zen. There is also that haunting passage in 1 Corinthians, 11:13, here in the King James: When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.