THE
FRACTAL LIE for
Gustaf Sobin “Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection.
Keep your solitude.”
--Simone Weil
My
sleeping dragons, figurines, and
walls: all
around my fears are breaking
up. Things outside this
room are things I
used to think I’d need. I’ve
taught myself to be alone.
I
now define myself with
thought and know that objects really
aren’t the things I need.
I
reinvent myself each time I
look around (as if I were a
clock or changed with every shift
in tone).
Ruskin
had us say that color, form
were not enough, and he was
wrong. What we need most now are
mirrors or a lake. Just enough to
hold us
for
one moment still.
As
Heraclitus said, all
is change.
But here I compromise, for it’s much
more (and less) than that. In truth, I never need to keep my promises or count
on those I hear. Nothing can repeat, no matter how I’d wish it otherwise. Each
season is a free-for-all. The water’s always sweet. I see my flowers growing in
an amber air. I make believe it’s August with young boys playing soccer in the
dawn. Then the air is full of locusts, and then I stand beneath Sophia’s dome,
listening to the rain. Forms of dervishes fill my room with light. I cannot
live without my words and yet I feel a cadence bringing back my image to
myself. The anger in my fingers passes into air.