36.

The world is in ruins isn’t it? For a moment I was almost sure of it. Now not only do I doubt myself I doubt the ability of any human person to give me an honest answer. I can trust the silence of the flower: Snake’s head fritillary beside a pond of clay in a place the sun can’t quite penetrate. It isn’t silent of course: it reminds me of the question before it became a question. I can trust the sweet darkness of the trace of blackberry jam that clings to my spoon, & this without trusting my senses: I can trust the sweet darkness it reveals in me, beyond any capacity of my tongue to represent: How could I sense what I am? You reveal me, world, & in so doing reveal yourself a ruin. The real power of Apocalypse is not as an end but in Eternity. Lord, it is true, your church is in ruins. In the ruins is the only place to worship you, the world become a forest glade, the skies filled with your winged seed. The illusion is continuous but the reality is impossibly discrete, its heralds come in flashes, uncanny knowings & persuasive dreams, faith is nothing but following your own thread through the labyrinth, the scent of your blackthorned body springing open, laying itself out like a trap around the secrets of your soul: it is a truth that dragons still haunt the hedgerows.

Discrete but not discontinuous, hence the illusion can be redeemed, indeed then redemption occurs through a certain likeness, although I doubt that really is the word. A confided similitude. Thus is there also great shame in this, a shame we lionise as pride, which in all honesty is simply sheer brilliance. It is almost as if stillness could lurk

in this city that has shattered every corner, where the gutters are aflame & every person is a fountain, a little feeder for hummingbirds.

It is enough, I mean, to make me yearn to be broken, your fix. Ah yes what a mess: I understand my fellow man less than your fathomless mystery.

But then: you would never presume understanding, just as you would never command one to kneel.

For when people kneel, the trees can no longer bough.