Beauty and the Illiterate

Odysseus Elytis

Often, in the Repose of Evening her soul took a lightness from

the mountains across, although the day was harsh and

tomorrow foreign.

But, when it darkened well and out came the priest’s hand over

the little garden of the dead, She

Alone, Standing, with the few domestics of the night—the blowing

rosemary and the murmur of smoke from the kilns—

at sea’s entry, wakeful

Otherly beauty!

Only the waves’ words half-guessed or in a rustle, and others

resembling the dead’s that startle in the cypress, strange

zodiacs that lit up her magnetic moon-turned head.

And one

Unbelievable cleanliness allowed, to great depth in her, the real

landscape to be seen,

Where, near the river, the dark ones fought against the angel,

exactly showing how she’s born, Beauty

Or what we otherwise call tear.

And long as her thinking lasted, you could feel it overflow the

glowing sight bitterly in the eyes and the huge, like an

ancient prostitute’s, cheekbones

Stretched to the extreme points of the Large dog and of the Virgin.

“Far from the pestilential city I dreamed of her deserted place

where a tear may have no meaning and the only light be

from the flame that ravishes all that for me exists.

“Shoulder-to-shoulder under what will be, sworn to extreme silence

and the co-ruling of the stars,

“As if I didn’t know yet, the illiterate, that there exactly, in extreme

silence are the most repellent thuds

“And that, since it became unbearable inside a man’s chest, solitude

dispersed and seeded stars!”

269

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Snails by Francis Ponge

Unlike the ashes that make their home with hot coals, snails prefer moist earth. Go on: they advance while gluing themselves to it with their entire bodies. They carry it, they eat it, they shit it. They go through it, it goes through them. It’s the best kind of interpenetration, as between tones, one passive and one active. The passive bathes and nourishes the active, which overturns the other while it eats.

(There is more to be said about snails. First of all their immaculate clamminess. Their sangfroid. Their stretchiness.)

One can scarcely conceive of a snail outside its shell and unmoving. The moment it rests it sinks down deep into itself. In fact, its modesty obliges it to move as soon as it has shown its nakedness and  revealed its vulnerable shape. The moment it’s exposed, it moves on.

During periods of dryness they withdraw into ditches where it seems their bodies are enough to maintain their dampness. No doubt their neighbors there are toads and frogs and other ectothermic animals. But when they come out again they don’t move as quickly. You have to admire their willingness to go into the ditch, given how hard it is for them to come out again.

Note also that though snails like moist soil, they have no affection for places that are too wet such as marshes or ponds. Most assuredly they prefer firm earth, as long as it’s fertile and damp.

They are fond as well of moisture-rich vegetables and green leafy plants. They know how to feed on them leaving only the veins, cutting free the most tender leaves. They are hell on salads.

What are these beings from the depths of the ditches? Though snails love many of their trenches’ qualities they have every intention of leaving. They are in their element but they are also wanderers. And when they emerge into the daylight onto firm ground their shells will preserve their vagabond’s hauteur.

It must be a pain to have to haul that trailer around with them everywhere, but they never complain and in the end they are happy about it. How valuable, after all, to be able to go home any time, no matter where you may find yourself, eluding all intruders. It must be worth it.