Adarq.org

Don't look back, he had told the king, yet he
too is guilty of retrospection as
the light fades, in that hour in winter or summer
before they bring in the candles, when earth
and sky melt, when the fluttering heart of
the bird on the bough calms and slows, and the
night-walking animals stir and stretch and
rouse, and the eyes of cats shine in the dark,
when color bleeds from sleeve and gown into
the darkening air; when the page grows dim
and letter forms elide and slip into other
conformations, so that as the page is
turned the old story slides from sight and a
strange and slippery confluence of ink
begins to flow.

........................ You look back into your
past and say, is this story mine; this land? Is
that flitting figure mine, that shape easing
itself through alleys, evader of the
curfew, fugitive from the day? Is this
my life, or my neighbor's conflated with
mine, or a life I have dreamed and prayed for;
is this my essence, twisting into a
taper's flame, or have I slipped the limits
of myself -- slipped into eternity, like
honey from a spoon? Have I dreamt myself,
undone myself, have I forgotten too
well[? M]y sins seek me out; even as I
slide into sleep, my past pads after me, paws
on the flagstones, pit-pat: water in a
basin of alabaster, cool in the
heat of the Florentine afternoon.