A couple of weeks ago I wrote the following lines:
first, around stillness;
then,
with stillness;
finally:
from stillness
-
Now, reading The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse (which is GREAT), this passage from page 257, the poem returns to me:
" 'You are tiring yourself, Joseph,' he said softly, his voice full of that touching friendliness and solicitude you know so well. That was all. ‘You are tiring yourself, Joseph.’ As if he had long been watching me engaged in a too-strenous task and wanted to admonish me to stop. He spoke the words with some effort, as though he had not used his lips for speaking for a long time. And at that moment he laid his hand on my arm - it was light as a butterfly - looked penetratingly into my eyes, and smiled. At that moment I was conquered. Something of his cheerful silence, away from words and toward music, away from ideas and toward unity. I understood what I was privileged to see here, and now for the first time grasped the meaning of this smile, this radiance. A saint, one who had attained perfection, had permitted me to dwell in his radiance for an hour; and blunderer that I am, I had tried to entertain him, to question him, to seduce him into a conversation. Thank God the light had not dawned on me too late. He might have sent me away and thus rejected me forever. And I would have been deprived of the most remarkable and wonderful experience I have ever had.”
A cheerful silence, away from words and toward music, away from ideas and toward unity.
Isn't that beautiful.
