The Last Person to Hear Your Voice: Philadelphia’s Urban Sphere and Its Environmental Thresholds

The Cartography of Loneliness

The Cartography of Loneliness The loneliness of the sea, of approaching Cartagena from the sea down a long still corridor and through the arms of a fortress unused for centuries. The loneliness of small towns in Kansas with depots to which no trains will ever come. The loneliness painted by Corot: a scrim of leafless poplars along a river in France, and beyond them a tall stone house with two chimneys reflected in the water. The loneliness of the farthest reaches of the rain. The loneliness of a German shepherd abandoned by those she loved and still loves, knowing what they have done to her. The loneliness of the Pilgrim’s Way across Kent and Surrey for a pilgrim alone. The loneliness of the ghost of a dead river in Arizona, of a field of stumps, once a forest in Oregon. The loneliness of summer’s leaving, lingering and looking back again and again, of the gorgeous, meaningless rhetoric of sunset. The loneliness of the moon in its final house with no star near it, and of the pale daylight moon. 41 The loneliness of an ear that will never see its mate, of a lost language, never again to be spoken, of the sure knowledge that death is near. 42 ...