Читать книгу Thomas Merton's Poetics of Self-Dissolution онлайн
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unborn:
No disguise will avail him anything
Such a one is neither lost nor found.
But he who has an address is lost.
They fall, they fall into apartments and are securely established!
They find themselves in streets. They are licensed
To proceed from place to place
They now know their own names
They can name several friends and know
Their own telephones must some time ring.
If all telephones ring at once, if all names are shouted at once and all
cars crash at one crossing:
If all cities explode and fly away in dust
Yet identities refuse to be lost. There is a name and number for
everyone.
There is a definite place for bodies, there are pigeon holes for ashes:
Such security can business buy!
Who would dare to go nameless in so secure a universe?
Yet, to tell the truth, only the nameless are at home in it.
They bear with them in the center of nowhere the unborn flower of
nothing:
This is the paradise tree. It must remain unseen until words end and
arguments are silent.27
Meaningful intuitions have appeared and disappeared with generous audacity throughout this selection, intuitions to which Merton faithfully returns a thousand and one times as part of his task of criticism and ruthless discovery. We cannot ignore these examples. As manifestations of the Living Word, they constantly exhort us not to take the appearance of reality as if it were Truth, not to be scared of ceasing to exist, not fearfully lacking a dwelling place in this world; they call us to free ourselves from the sad burden of ideas which constitute our identity, to detach from, to dispossess and get rid of that kind of “I” who is prey to the burden of time, that time which bears heavily on all of us and hinders everything: wise pieces of advice I would like to carve on this church’s tympanum28 with the help of all the graces from Heaven.