Easter 1957

1

Begin, begin again, no matter where!From now on it onlymatters that every day you dosome task, a taskperformed attentively,honestly. It only mattersthat you add to the unending construction of reality(never completed) your very small daily share. …Through the telescope or with your one remaining eyeyou see slowly, rather badly in detail,but all in all well enough. Well enough to get your bearings.Well enough to follow the road that little by littlereveals itself. Well enough to do your partas best you can. After all, in fact,does it matter, the task's particulars,the outline of the foot's form in the sand,or the goal where you finish, late, tired enough,where you finish perhaps, sometimes, by arriving?But there is no goal either.The goal is always receding toward the unreacheddunes.

2

Easter is the opposite of Christmas.The square empties, the living being disappears.It is the end of visible fleshly life,of meals, of hours of sleep. It's the endof action at once observed and dubious, measurable, measured,kept secret, discreet.         Only two or three women encounterthe Present. They don't ask themselves questions, they wantto know what is or isn't. Then a few disciples, in groups,including Thomas. Who must be approached and shown.There thus do characters, states of mind differ.        At the same time, flowers, trees, life overflowingthe fields, awakened animals, moved to mate,to feed, to kill. The triumph of the visible begins, thematerial, which will not start to melt, to disappeartill the start of winter. Splendor of pelts.Splendor of eyes, of paws. Total ignorance.Ignorance of a more durable, longer-lasting world.Is this the grossest, heaviest stageof the stupefaction visible to the soul, there where itcannot even remember, in any case no longer say …

3

No more sleeping pills. No more appearances.No more symbols, in truth, neither stones nor plants.Nor houses. Nor trees.Come forward on my deserted paths, approachmy deserted spaces. I will be henceforththe voice of silence, the shadow at your left on daysof brilliant light, the sound of steps on pebbles,time that passes and passes so slowly, so fast;I am your silence and what surrounds it; I amyour silence and what's deepest, if seldom, in it.Say goodnight to me, say good morning, good morning especially,a long good morning as a work day startssay good morning to me to call me, me here and nowme in my turn, you in your turn, us in our turnto call usto the creation.

4

Easter MondayListen. Follow me. The man in the chapel,excuse me, the church, Anglican, official and all thatexplaining, commenting on, while looking at no one,some very brief word in the Epistle to the Hebrews,insists on that essential teaching of Christ,preaching to us like the greatest pioneer. Follow me. Come along after me. Walk behind me.Is it a predilection for discipline? For modesty?Is it authentic intelligence and heart?

I don't know. I don't even knowwhat is due to me, what I take undeserving?I don't know when I ought to stop.And telephoning my confidante would in truthbe useless. She would vaguely reassure me, one might say at most,for a few moments, at most. Those birds flying off,are they carrying a ray, a crumb, a paltrypiece of my heart? Or nothing? Their shadow?The shadow of their fear and of their lightness?I would have so many questions for you.

5

Yellow beak, curved beak, rabbit's nose,swan's bill. Bring me nothing. Teach me nothing.I must wait. In the silence and the dark.In the tormented night's unsavory shadows.In disorder. Must wait without evena specific hope. Must wait untilthe waited-for result has been achieved.Wait, that is to say, for moments, opportunities,the rarely fruitful I don't...