Читать книгу The Collector of Bodies - Diane Glancy - Страница 11

There were times alone in my room, I felt the low point of travel. The weariness of understanding the fright of the world, or at least a variableness of it. So much larger than anything I had touched, but saw nonetheless, and could only express it sometimes in discordant images rolling against the other.

One afternoon I cried and had trouble stopping.

There was a muddle flying over the earth. A shard of fear. A distinct withdrawal from the awareness of the enormity of what was below and maybe above. What was the earth but a speeding story that maybe could not stop before it was too late for slowing? The unwrapping of other baggage I carried that would not stay packed.

This summit of one’s self speaking before an assembly about the ordinariness of one’s life because they thought all of America was rich. And to read one’s work and have it interrupted by a professor telling his students the Arabic language was what poetry was, not the plainness of language I was bringing, and yes, yes, that was true, but poetry also carried the plainness of one’s experienced life, and I continued my reading, and when it was over, the students shuffled by my table leaving mementoes and their thanks for what I brought.

Later in my room, I put my hand to my burning forehead, not with sickness, but with recognition of another part of the world. Maybe more than once I had the urge to fall on my knees and beg once more for what had passed.