next to the toffee tree

A man sets out to run the world

With slanting side streets

And hills overlooking harbours.

Under torrid day light

And the musty haze of dusk.

With stars in his eyes and stars overhead

With drums in his ears and drums in his chest.

He runs in straight lines and gentle curves,

He runs in circles and paths that fold back and back upon themselves.

.

He covers the gate of his father, and his brothers,

his contrymen and his lovers…

Borges tells that all these trails of blood and water 

Trace his iron clad labyrinth of fate against the persistant time.

. 

Sometimes when I run

I block out the wind, the groans of the city, and stop my metronimic heart.

In that silence I hear only

The kiss and cuss

Of fine gravel being spread out;

Tumbling across the face of the earth to find rest again.

And I wonder, with all the gravel that I have pushed out,

All the blades of grass I have swept aside with my bare heel,

And all the grains that I rushed away with the soul of my foot –

What strange face am I drawing in the sand?

 

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¹It seems to me, that the more important question I can’t let rest, is that when the drums in my chest begin to weaken and fail – when the trail of blood that once trickled begins to lap down upon the hot asphalt, when my knees and my face press themselves and lay themselves down upon the earth… — in that silence — will I hear the beating horse hooves of my salvation? Will the deep swells and hollows of the earth echo this ressonance as to gently shake my stillest face? Will I feel my saviour’s hands firmly hold my cheek bones as they percieve the same touch they felt, only once, on the day when they were moulded from the dust?   

I think I might have just answered my own question…because all I can imagine are nail-pierced hands stretching out in front of the artist’s eyes…