Back to Form and Discontent index
To the icon painters
SNAKES AND LADDERS
Under attack, and that
attack so sweet
and that sweetness so
simple, so
(in its own way)
unworldly. Aren't we -
possessed
by drink, by lust -
'out of this world'? true meaning
of the Greek
'aios'?
Yes, truly,
that sort of sweet
death is simple
and unworldly
and easily available
and it offers
fulness -
a small, shrinking fulness but
fulness nonetheless.
Why, alas, should we be cursed
with the knowledge
that there is Something Else,
something not closed
in on itself, and yet
not nebulous?
That momentary, closed fulness
stops us in our tracks, and then
we need to be stopped again
and again and again and again.
That open, non-nebulous fulness,
on the other hand,
is never realised.
The one
is a succession of spaces.
The other
the unfolding of time.
Time unfolding.
Time as we know it,
moment by moment, offers
opportunities.
We do not change
in a smooth progression,
like a plant, growing -
purification, illumination,
glorification - rather
moments of each, interspersed
with other things, but even
at the bottom of the snake
we retain
the top of the ladder, as,
at the top of the ladder, we retain
the bottom of the snake.
The end of all that isn't
the top right hand square.
The unfolding of time
is the board entire.