in parentheses

And to the brave girl who writes a wrinkle on a  moist page: ‘where is eternity?’ She asks her mother, she asks her father, she asks her kin, she asks her teacher, she asks her rabbi, she asks her God, and nothing: she asks the old woman born to die a rat on the street, she asks the man flopping through the trash, she asks the lovers with a needle dangling from their arms, and nothing: she asks the city, she asks the country, she asks the world: ‘where, where is eternity?, and where, where are the eternities?’

‘Where are the words that guide the little seekers of the heart? Where are the dreamers who teach others how to see? Where are the pillars of wisdom that were said to never die?’

If I had any dreams left, I’d give her every one, telling her: here, this, take it, with the hope that she would be the one to break the machine that makes dreamless dreams, that she would be the one to know the dream, and that she would be the one to rebirth the throne of eternity and our dreams.

But look, and see, dear, if I remove the veil from my face, look and see with fear and trembling, this is the face of eternity.

‘Where are the words that guide the little seekers of the heart? Where are the dreamers who teach others how to see? Where are the pillars of wisdom that were said to never die?’

Eternity once lived in this city and begged in these streets, to parishioners and to seculars, and eternity grovelled in the parks and squares, to nuns and to whores, and eternity died in the corner of their eyes, faceless and nameless the body sunk down under, to die amongst the rats.

And there once was one, same as you,  she cried out in the city: where are the eternities, where are the eternities, where are the eternities? And she yelled at the people bent into their machines: have you so lost touch that eternity you hunger after no more, to go down without grief for an untouched eternity? And to their backs she screamed: you scoundrels you cowards you forsakers, you dare not the fire wharf of eternity, you dare not strand yourself on eternity’s earthen shore, you dare not eat up each blade of grass to fill you up with eternity, you dare not, you scoundrels you cowards you forsakers, no, you are not the children of eternity. And she died, soon after, in the corner of some dive, somewhere near the river, fore she no longer saw the fire and the water dance, the earth and the sky melt, the dream of eternity.

And you too, when you arrive you will see the city you will see the people and you will scream at them: where are the words that begin the dream? where are our mother and father who promised our dreams? where is the birth? And you too, when you know you will want to find some darkness to swallow you. And you too, when you feel you will want to scratch out the search from your heart’s eye and let it bleed out into a cry, you will wish a call to die.

My dear, there is no eternity. And words, and the spirit in you, are both lies. There is birth there is life and there is death. And there is such little in between the two ends. A sorrowful path is for one who tries. A bleeding road is for one who mourns. And a forsaking end is for one who seeks.

I wish, for something sweet, I could say, but too long have I been one who mourns, and meeting you now, I begin to learn what truly is forsaking.

‘Where are the words that guide the little seekers of the heart? Where are the dreamers who teach others how to see? Where are the pillars of wisdom that were said to never die?’