Heidegger

A recent poem by Patti Smith (surely this could have been sung on her
monumental album ‘Horses’):

“Wilderness
———————
Do animals make a human cry
when their loved one staggers
fowled dragged down
the blue veined river

Does the female wail
miming the wolf of suffering
do lilies trumpet the pup
plucked for skin and skein

Do animals cry like humans
as I having lost you
yowled flagged
curled in a ball

This is how
we beat the icy field
shoeless and empty handed
hardly human at all

Negotiating a wilderness
we have yet to know
this is where time stops
and we have none to go

———————-

I wonder what she has been reading (reading as saying what is given)?
Whenver I hear the word “wildlife” I want to reach for a warm gun… Is
there nothing at the edge of beings? Or just Other,
difference-qua-difference, the silence of predicating predication, where
words break off? The silent cry of wilderness?

goodnight each [the light is switched off]

michaelP

Posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
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