8. Departure and Return
A Peddler's Philosophy
Distance blurs everything—mountain and sky lose their borders at a remove, like an Impressionist painting. Windows, dishes, the peddler's call—all of one piece, the daily symphony. Flowers wanted, clay dolls wanted—but what do I give, what do I get? Who worked out this unequal sum of exchange, which economist? Debris accumulates—which relationship is real, which cosmetic, which diamond, which glass? Gradually everything grows heavy—in the satchel, in the chest, under the eyes, along the spine.
How many verdant memories on the old pedestal—like moss; the older they are, the greener; the more neglected, the more alive. Yet even that green is fading—each memory bleaching bit by bit, like an old photograph. Still, some things retain their worth—not in artistic merit, but in the churning of memory, in the chemistry of the heart. A broken button, a letter yellowed by time, a child's drawing…where every head is larger than its body—these have no market price, will never go to auction, yet their value is incalculable. Let small mysteries remain—they are what keep life alive. Let the peddler depart in silence—there is something in his satchel that even he does not know, whose value even he cannot fathom.
The Shadow of a Fugitive
Month after month, someone calls from the depths within—in the sound of wind, in falling leaves, in dew-wet grass green with my true name, the name no one knows. Walks alongside me constantly—a shadow given flesh, yet more elusive than shadow, more fleeting than mist. Present with me, yet invisible—the eye cannot see itself, the finger cannot touch itself.
In the gaps of work, in noisy intimate moments I search—she dissolves into any crowd, dissolves into the river of people. A fugitive—hiding herself in the throng as trees hide in a forest. Perhaps she is that part of me I refuse to recognize—the face behind the mirror, the view beyond the frame, the cropped portion of the photograph. One day we will stand face to face—then perhaps I will be afraid, perhaps I will recognize myself, perhaps both at once.
Invisible Footprints
Some absorbed wanderer walks ceaselessly—through your chest, mine, everyone's, along the roads of veins, through the alleys of nerves. Even in sleep she walks—footprints fall in dreams, her scent lingers on the pillow at dawn. The joys and sorrows of adolescence, the running about, the fragrance of an unspoiled garden—she carries these—in memory's heavy bundle, like a porter, without wages. Face to face with the thrill of distance, desire's dialogue runs constant, breath held in solitude—the entire picture of life drawn in the mirror of the eye, changing each moment yet the frame the same, the canvas the same.
She is mortal—one day she will lie down in the last seat, on earth's bed, under a blanket of grass, beneath the roof of sky. In sorrow and wonder that day will pass—from one pause to another scene, the curtain falls, then rises again. Then silence—that silence which speaks louder than words. The performance ends, the character lives on—the stage is torn down, the story remains.
The Face Across the Pond
Sunday, no work—on a holiday afternoon I simply look, as a child looks—without judgment, without analysis, without knowing names, without classification. Fields on both banks heavy with harvest, the unreserved green of crops pulls on memory's thread—that thread cannot be seen, yet it doesn't break, stronger than a spider's web. The river too is a picture—painted in watercolors, changing each moment, yet the same river, the same name. Life is not difficult—the sleep of happiness and power…all is colored deception, all is mirage, the illusion of a thirsty desert.
I too was a deceived nestling—I had mistaken the bird in the mirror for a friend, struck glass trying to touch beak to beak. Yet that face—eyes tinged with color, lips holding back a smile that never bloomed but was preparing to—I remember. That face I saw across the trembling pond of adolescence—it did not drown, it floats still under water, alive as coral, covered in algae but intact.
Dialogue After Dusk
Now I will watch the sky—having flown all day like a torn kite, a slave to the wind, now I will sit quietly and watch the sky, will breathe in the wind's fragrance—the fragrance the city made me forget, that my nose remembers, that is carved into my nostrils—the smell of the village.
I know Orion by heart—Grandmother showed me, pointing with her finger, no glasses needed, when I was small; now I have to hunt for it myself, the stars swallowed by light pollution. Everything has sunk into mud—but from mud blooms the lotus, the most beautiful flower in the filthiest water.
Even if all your green light fades—wake, survive, laugh. Laughter is the cheapest medicine and the costliest gift—given free and priceless in one breath. Then—perhaps one evening we’ll stand face to face—after the final conversation. Words will run dry—the dictionary emptied, the pen exhausted. Only silence will remain—and what gets said in that silence, no language can translate, no translator has ever been born for it.
**The Reverse of Darkness**
I sow seeds with both hands—of love, of brightness. Each seed a folded letter—the soil reads it slowly, water reads it drop by drop, then one day it answers in the language of shoots, in green ink. Those watercolor paintings, blue as fireflies, keep me a king—whose kingdom is dream, whose crown is imagination, whose throne a scrap of afternoon shadow, whose subjects a herd of clouds.
At harvest time I secretly slip into a doubtful chest—two pieces of bread in my palm, the remnants of a tired noon light, an unfinished song that no one will ever complete, the one whose last line the poet fell asleep before writing.
Perhaps beside that false friend I understand—this is where the spell lies, this is where life dwells—two at the same address. In the stingy harbor, false promises sit in silence—a ship will come, they whisper, a ship that will never arrive, a horizon always equidistant. Then I know for certain—on the reverse side of darkness, the address of light is written—you only have to turn it, only have to dare to look the other way.
**The Grammar of Farewell**
I will return—when the market closes, the vendor goes, empty sack on his shoulder, dust on his feet, the day’s fatigue in his chest; dew falls from the peak at dawn—weightless, soundless, homeless. Sun leaves, guests leave, seasons leave, youth leaves—everything falls like this, fades, wears away yet survives—survival in the wearing away, return in the falling. The seed of return hidden in the act of going—within each farewell, the embryo of reunion slumbers; in every ending, a beginning is born.
From branch comes flower, from flower fragrance, from fragrance memory, from memory transparent shadow, from dream comes weeping—all of it departs, becomes a trembling sigh, becomes the mist of the last breath. Going is life—in going, everything merges, the river loses its name in the ocean, the person loses its boundary in the world. But water remains. Water always remains—it changes shape, changes name, changes address—but water remains. Water alone, only water, endures forever.