...

a tribute to Oriental Elegy

I go from the feelings, and I think that what always interests me is just those feelings that only a spiritual person could experience: the feelings of farewells and separations. I think that the drama of death is the drama of separation.

In Japanese art there is a concept of mono no aware, sweet sadness, the pleasure of endings, of autumn and seeing a dying leaf. But for Russia, sweet sadness and pleasant farewells are not possible. On the contrary, in the Russian sense of elegy, it's a very deep, vertical feeling, not a delighting one. It gets you deeply, sharply, painfully. It's massive.

Sokurov

À Mon Seul Désir

to my only desire

this is a death looking at you
through the flesh of my song

beauty alone has stirred my soul
and your body, you ask, your body

caution, my love,
caution toward this night
of my gaze

who will surrender
the unicorn asks
unfolding her music



(Selfportrait as The Lady with the Silent Bell,
a fanciful re-reading of the Cluny tapestries)

asking the moon

Did I
have a soul
did I
have too much.

I gathered

some

things.

I took

them

inside.

I asked

the

wily Moon.

Looking

down

on me.

I went

on

pathways.

What stays
are the remains
and memories
of the backhalf
of life
never again
to be first
of things
now among things
I am only.

There is a sphere
beyond hope
there is light
in the darkness.

This is all
you know
it is enough
to know.

(excerpts from Transcension, Things and Only
by Peter Bradburn)

painting winter with my eyes closed: no rarefied poétique du blanc, but the mad rush of snow in my veins