Death Has No Terror (From "Trojan Women" 371-408)

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD)

Is it the truth that souls live on 　　 　　beyond the buried flesh? Or just a myth to drug weak hearts　　 　　with hope for something else? 　 When fingers of the one we love　　 　　ease our eyes shut forever, when our last day blots out the light　　 　　of days that lay ahead, and the grim urn has sealed away　　 　　the ash that was our self, can we not give our being up 　　 　　in the grave's gift of death? Are we, poor things, condemned to live　　 　　through more existence yet? 　　 Or is death something absolute,　　 　　no fraction of us left when our soul, like a burst of air　　 　　commingling overhead with vaporous and fleeting clouds, 　　 　　flees with our last gasped breath and the cremation torches' tongues　　 　　have licked our naked flesh?

All that the Sun sees on its rise　　 　　or in its setting glow, all that the Sea's blue billows wash　　 　　with global ebb and flow, is pulled by Pegasus-swift Time　　 　　doomward. All things must go.

As the cyclonic cosmos' whirl　　 　　the Zodiac we see, 　　 and Sun, the Lord of Stars, spins out　　 　　the roll of centuries,　　 and Moon in witching orbit's arc 　　 　　speeds to Her destiny,　　 as all things extant go the way　　 　　they must go, so do we. He who has reached the stagnant waves　　 　　of Styx, the Netherstream 　　 where gods are sworn to ceaseless truth,　　 　　has simply ceased to be.　　

As smoke from sputtering fire, we soil 　　 　　the atmosphere, then fade. As the rain-pregnant clouds you see　　 　　first darken the blue day are scattered by the sudden Northwind's 　　 　　chill blasts, then dissipate, the souls that rule our flesh will flow　　 　　apart without a trace. For there is nothing after death　　 　　and death is not a state only the finish line of this　　 　　swift existential race. 　 Lay down your greed for a reward,　　 　　your fears of punishment. When greedy Time and gnashing Chaos　　 　　devour us, we just end. For death can be no partial thing.　　 　　When it destroys the flesh it nullifies the soul. There is　　 　　no afterlife, no Hell, no hellhound guardian at the gates 　　 　　to block escape attempts, no savage tyrant Lord who rules 　 　　the kingdom of the dead. These are no more than hollow folktales　　 　　unworthy of attention, fragments of fantasy and myth 　　 　　turned nightmare and deception. 　　 You ask "where will we go when we　 　　are dead forevermore?" 　　　　You'll be with the unborn.

Self-Portrait as Lilith

Elizabeth Acevedo

some days you seem so disappointed, love but you knew

what it was. i am your dread wife.

you will not throw me out of eden i walk myself to the door.

o! there is no snake i plant the tree.

i pluck the apple i bite. the pomegranate the passion fruit

whatever the fuck. i am feast unto myself.

in this wilderness the feral things name me.

& i was raised to one day wash my husband’s feet at night.

of course i molted made myself a woman who unmakes home.

refused to be whittled to a fine point but you like me piercing.

beloved i will not only writhe when coming.

my vow: break through this shell fully impossible. your vow: lap every slick of the yolk.

Georges Jouanin

Georges Jouanin was seventeen years old when the Second World War broke out, the last of five siblings. At thirteen, he began an apprenticeship as a printer. In 1942, he came into contact with the Resistance. A year later, he was arrested and deported, and remained a concentration camp inmate forced labourer, until he was liberated on 30 April 1945. A typographer by trade, he joined the Resistance in Vierzon, then in Paris (where he hid to escape compulsory labour). In July 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo, imprisoned, tortured and convicted. Six months later, he was deported to Buchenwald and became prisoner number "38,491". He was sent to the gypsum mines, in Dora-Mittelbau: he escaped this hell by declaring himself an electrician, & was transferred to the assembly of V2s. Subsequently, he was sent to Ravensbrück. At the beginning of 1945, the Nazis made prisoners undertake forced marches, before the allies reached the camps. Georges used the opportunity to escape his tormentors. He joins a group of escaped Frenchmen. Liberated by the Russian army, they survived another month in Germany before their repatriation to Paris. Returned to his Berry family, he faces the consequences of his captivity. He was taken to the Black Forest to treat tuberculosis. There he met a nurse from the German Red Cross who would become his wife. they built a new life, in the Alps, where the climate was conducive to the healing of his disease. George and his wife had three sons.

George wrote a book detailing his experiences: Forgive, Never Forget.

The Muezzin

Vita Sackville-West

Above the city at his feet, Above the dome, above the sea, He rises unconfined and free To break upon the noonday heat.

He turns around the parapet, Black-robed against the marble tower; His singing gains or loses power In pacing round the minaret.

A brother to the singing birds He never knew restraining walls, But freely rises, freely falls The rhythm of the sacred words.

I would that it to me were given To climb each day the muezzin’s stair And in the warm and silent air To sing my heart out into Heaven.

Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα

Δε φοβούμαι τίποτα

Είμαι λέφτερος

I hope for nothing

I fear nothing

I am free

- Nikos Kazantzakis' epitaph

Kazantzakis is buried at the highest point of the Venetian walls and bastions, in Heraklion, Crete.

I'm currently reading Report to Greco (perhaps that's what put him in my mind) and, serendipitously, I find it's 14 years ago this month, since I made the circuit of the city walls and paid him my respects.

I Was My Own Route

Julia de Burgos

I wanted to be like men wanted me to be:

an attempt at life;

a game of hide and seek with my being.

But I was made of nows,

and my feet level on the promissory earth

would not accept walking backwards

and went forward, forward,

mocking the ashes to reach the kiss

of new paths.

At each advancing step on my route forward

my back was ripped by the desperate flapping wings

of the old guard.

But the branch was unpinned forever,

and at each new whiplash my look

separated more and more and more from the distant

familiar horizons;

and my face took the expansion that came from within,

the defined expression that hinted at a feeling

of intimate liberation;

a feeling that surged

from the balance between my life

and the truth of the kiss of the new paths.

Already my course now set in the present,

I felt myself a blossom of all the soils of the earth,

of the soils without history,

of the soils without a future,

of the soil always soil without edges

of all the men and all the epochs.

And I was all in me as was life in me .. . .

I wanted to be like men wanted me to be:

an attempt at life;

a game of hide and seek with my being.

But I was made of nows;

when the heralds announced me

at the regal parade of the old guard,

the desire to follow men warped in me,

and the homage was left waiting for me.

Wade in the Water

Tracy K Smith

for the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters

One of the women greeted me.

I love you, she said. She didn't

Know me, but I believed her,

And a terrible new ache

Rolled over in my chest,

Like in a room where the drapes

Have been swept back. I love you,

I love you, as she continued

Down the hall past other strangers,

Each feeling pierced suddenly

By pillars of heavy light.

I love you, throughout

The performance, in every

Handclap, every stomp.

I love you in the rusted iron

Chains someone was made

To drag until love let them be

Unclasped and left empty

In the centre of the ring.

I love you in the water

Where they pretended to wade,

Singing that old blood-deep song

That dragged us to those banks

And cast us in. I love you,

The angles of it scraping at

Each throat, shouldering past

The swirling dust motes

In those beams of light

That whatever we now knew

We could let ourselves feel, knew

To climb. O Woods—O Dogs—

O Tree—O Gun—O Girl, run—

O Miraculous Many Gone—

O Lord—O Lord—O Lord—

Is this love the trouble you promised?

If a People Desires to Live

Abu al-Qasim al Shabi (excerpt)

If, one day, a people desires to live, then fate will answer their call.

And their night will then begin to fade, and their chains break and fall.

For he who is not embraced by a passion for life will dissipate into thin air,

At least that is what all creation has told me, and what its hidden spirits declare.

The Liberation of Berlin Zoo, 1945

Mario Petrucci

'Whenever you see a green space in Berlin be very suspicious.' Pieke Biermann A shell ladders the wire fence top to bottom - skids to its middle in mud, a huge sizzling clove. And out they stalk under wide noonlight - wary at first, casting this way and this with the yellow of hunger that winks in phosphorescent coins. The cats currmurr - a liquid that beats in their throats low and thick, almost a cello. Movement stirs instinct - ankles, wrists, pale exposures of neck. Jaguar begins. Her continents of muscle flinch. She unwinds her crouch into the convoy's parallel herd - embraces from behind, full pelt, a traffic policeman, his white-gloved salute the flash of a doe's tail. In the act of being savaged his hands signal on - and for seconds diverted trucks respond without dent or screech. On Tiergartenstrasse, Panther is surprised onto its haunches by Oberkommandierender Guttmann rounding a bend. Animal meets animal. Panther grins - lifts a black velvet claw. Guttmann raises a hand. And for a moment they are old co-conspirators slapping pad to palm - before a single swipe opens a flap in Guttmann's pot neatly through the buttonhole, spills his coils into winter which at last he feels, threading him. Panther swills bloodwine. Fangs the sweet cakes of a half-digested Limburger lunch. Orang-utan has mounted a tram. Points back at children, one arm trailed in a mockery of style, chin cocked to velocity's breeze. Tonight she'll drag knuckles right up the Reichstag steps, plant a trained suck on the cheek of the porter. His look will pale her into intelligence. On Potsdamer Platz Zho crops turf. Her eyes betray a sidewise disposition towards predators louche in the alleys behind speakeasy and bar. Yet something is missing from the maw of buildings - a tooth pulled from history to make this square of sward, which Zho crops simply because it grows, because it ranks so unnaturally green. Last is Python. Her anvil head, by degrees, jacks towards dim hammerings of free air, grim to push the die-cast snout into any nest of blood. The cold slides into her. She slops into culverts heavy as a rope of copper - moulds to the sewers, wraps the city in coils of intention. Develops a rattle for Russia, a string of diamond yellows for Poland. She winds up a tension. And Berlin ticks inwards, becomes a city breathless, a gasp of dust where Volkswagens are specks, circling crazily. But there is nothing to fear. Not now. The cats have had their fill - only pawprints lead through snow down to the mouths of alleys. A white-gloved claw is on the kerb. The people walk round it, pull tight their collars. Eventually, from a windowbox in Charlottenburg Palace, a single petal of phlox will bear down into the shallow cup of its palm with all the weight of a snowflake.

At All

Lemn Sissay

Someone has bricked up The Foyle. The hands of dawn crawl across it I’m drawn through the window Into the air under a bruised sky. It’s still a river.  It’s a still river.

They’ll make it a heritage site soon enough. That’ll take time. There’ll be a Brick Festival. What I like most is the work, the skill, For each corner to match and the trenches, For the gentle pressure and slowness of drying. How many did it take…. to make this… Symmetrical wonder of capillary and flesh stone? Someone bricked up The Foyle.

Like most rivers the water runs beneath. Last night  a woman – I shouldn’t say her name – decided enough was enough.  She’s on the bricks now. She skips “That’s us”  she shouts “That’s us” A new echo has formed.

The banks are lined with trowels, mixers and string Mist lifts and darkness unveils the sun. Footsteps, First two then more and many many more Running down the roads we know so well Down down down to the banks of The Foyle

Here we are Standing both sides and along the bridges. Not a word. Not words.   Not words at all.  Not any words.