journey to Lanzarote, or: all that remains

(this is a re-post from November 2012... while packing bags, i wondered if i would find the time to blog about leaving properly. and then browsed the previous blog entries. and found this note, which i couldn't put better today, on this day before leaving, which is day of rain, and of yet some things left to do, while the horizon is becoming more real.)

 

Saturday, 24th November 2012

the day of leaving and arriving
this overlap of reality
___when here 
________turns there

Finalities and waking early. Sorting, wrapping, packing, checking.
And: going back in time. To the same day, some years ago. When i was there on the island already for the longer part by then, when thoughts turned to going back home. Here's the diary entry from back then: all that remains (and to think: what would remain without words).

**

Thursday, 24th November 2006
all that remains

every morning, just after sunrise, i go to the beach. it's not far, and it feels like the most beautiful start to the day, walking down the way that leads to the shore. and the shore, it's different every day, the light, the waves, the wind, the clouds.

this morning it felt like Mexico, even though i never have been there. or maybe it's me, who feels lazy after the days of cruising the roads of this fire island.

so i am sitting on the beach now, watching the waves, watching ships and birds glide by, and watch the planes arrive and leave. in a way, an island is a place of timeless being, and in another way, it's a place of permanent motion, with the waves and the wind.

and it's a perfect place for words: today i readd a poem at the beach, one that just so fitted to these days, to this place - it's printed in German in the book, so i try the translation, below. back home i will look for the original. just like i will look for the answer of another riddle: the rhythm of the turning of the tides. or maybe i will figure that one out in the passing of the next days.

**

When the long letters
have been written and read and 
stored away, when distances 
turn into the absolute,
just like the talking does,
then all that remains is
the listening. 

I have heard the black hearts
of stones 
who beat only once in their life. 

- William Pitt Root