Every day I face mysteries that I cannot seem to unravel. They seem shrouded in a cloth that transforms the moment it is touched. These mysteries metamorphize without notice. I often stand in one place and see, what appears to be a tiny glimpse of an answer—then poof—it vanishes. Each time I try to resolve these mysteries, I am confronted with one more. And, they always seem to come in threes. Today’s mysteries include why 1) the rule of law is dismissed, 2) we cannot listen to our enemies cries for help and 3) children will suffer for the arrogance of their elders. This brings to mind the following poem:
you came to freeze with your silence
the dreams the swirl of aurora dusk the sleeping
lake inside the water lily going down
black sister to the man who gave you a crown
carry the frost knurled sky over your
temples a cloud in bloom upon the eyelash
you the wanderer in simpler clothes will ask
laughing what next the autumn out of the walnuts
you won’t have the shirt with the shadow sewn on it
the starlit gauze worn over the night
the gold’s asleep again the fog moving on
who shall I give the dew to or the tear of the eye
—Paul Celan, The Sadness from “Halo—Poems by Paul Celan”, published by Coffee House Press in 1991 and translated by Stavros Deligiorgis and illustrated by Jeffrey Scherer, 1991
Now is my time to learn to coexist with the mysteries.
