It will be better
for future generations
Now
that you're gone...
You see,
they will be spared from the tragedy
of losing a(n authorly) dear friend, a confidant, mentor,
a loved one
Zero can replace
from (book) end to (book) end
-From America To Italy-
tears between salty seas
I could not be amore triste
(mi manchi)
Lucky am I
to be born too late
to suffer the agony
of losing more,
Italo, Borges, Aldous, and Hesse, all the poets
gone before, so many I adore-
The words cut off, there is The End
of literary legends and magnificent minds,
such as He
Now freed from his earthly libraries
to live for all our eternity.
Image above painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1898 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Image By Lesekreis, taken 10/14/2012 [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.
"I can prove to you that every age has interpreted certain events in the light of this apocalyptic text*: events such as comets, cows with two heads, and so on, were all spoken of as signs of foretelling a dramatic day of reckoning for the human race. Specialists are aware of this and write about it, but the general public refuses to believe it. Let's say you have to console a friend who has been destroyed by his wife. The man says to you: 'I can't go on living.' 'Come, come,' you say, 'all of us have been deserted at least once, if not more often in our lives. It happens to everyone.' This argument has never consoled a sad lover. He thinks of his problem as graver than the ones you describe to him. In the same way, the argument that all men are mortal has never consoled a dying man! 'You're dying, old friend, but be reasonable, it happens to everyone!' If he has any strength, he will slap you in the face. So what can you do to persuade people who believe that the end of the world is nigh, that people from every past generation have seen it coming before they did? Do you say that it's sort of (a) recurrent dream, like the dream that our teeth are falling out or that we suddenly find ourselves naked in the middle of the street? No, they'd reply, This time, it's more important than all the other times."**
*referring to the Book of Revelation
The preceding quoted text is excerpted from the book "Conversations about the End of Time"**
**Eco, Umberto, Catherine David, Frédéric Lenoir, and Jean-Philippe De. Tonnac.Conversations about the End of Time. New York: Fromm International, 2000. Print. p. 181
