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<< -- 3 -- Tess Crebbin LIFE AND DEATH
Here are some excerpts from Bernstein's libretto of Shadowtime, too good to be missed:
Emotion is the trace of a moment in time. It never signifies an end.
I hold tight but find in my arms only the past.
What transpires now has never before been and is already gone as you reflect on it.
I speak of the Messiah whom the poet senses without naming
the painter feels without seeing
the composer hears without noting
the philosopher supposes without knowing
Mourning is a kind of listening
where the dead sing to us
and even the living tell their stories
Death a veil
that opens onto a void
in which the heavenly
gathers itself
Beauty is never the lifting of a veil
it is the secret of its enfolding
When winds of change are gone
blasts of fear take hold
Is the future a memory projected into time
or is the past a shadow of a future that never happens?
The past never passes but we pass over it
again and again, not listening to what it tells
but to the empty stories we tell about it.
Are you waking from a dream or are you waking into a dream?
Are you remembering your dreams or dreaming that you have memories?
Charles Bernstein. Photo © Jill Kramer
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Copyright © 3 June 2004
Tess Crebbin, Germany
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