Читать книгу Love's Last Number - Christopher Howell - Страница 17

THIS MORTAL COIL

1. On the Nature of Things

Lucretius believed that contentment could not be

contained, since soul is its definitive essence,

and since the particular shade of its formality

insists soul be experienced as a long, empty

stretch of beach. Evening reminds me of this.

Windows brighten with darkness and lilac leaves

brush their shadows into place. The daylilies fall

to their knees. One by one the moments become

themselves as Lucretius, in a golf shirt and slacks,

examines their unassuming surprise. He is not

surprised, on this street of bungalows and modest

swank. From one of the interstices between worlds,

he looks back at the future that’s eyeing him

and scratches under his left arm. In a while he will

join me on my porch. Four hundred miles inland,

we will contemplate the sea and he will remind me

again that death is nothing to us.