Gnome Man Is An Island
The Gnome has passed on. We will remember him in the prosperity and education system he left behind, in the defence arrangements, the zoo and the bird park, the many things which he touched and made but which we did not see.
We will remember him even though we complain so much about what he did. Because, in the end, he really did try his best. His wizardly brain went west a long time ago, but the thoughts he thought in his prime were wiser than the thoughts of most others.
If anyone should be named the father of modern Atlantis, it is he. Or at least, that is what my students thought after I told his story.
His chapter is ended now. I must quote Donne's famous lines from Meditation XVII, not the ones that most think of, but these:
...all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another...
Autumn has now come upon Atlantis.
We will remember him even though we complain so much about what he did. Because, in the end, he really did try his best. His wizardly brain went west a long time ago, but the thoughts he thought in his prime were wiser than the thoughts of most others.
If anyone should be named the father of modern Atlantis, it is he. Or at least, that is what my students thought after I told his story.
His chapter is ended now. I must quote Donne's famous lines from Meditation XVII, not the ones that most think of, but these:
...all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another...
Autumn has now come upon Atlantis.
Labels: Biography, John Donne, Myth
etched with acid at 10:47:00 am
4 Comments:
My condolences for your loss. If I may, when do you see winter setting in?
@LR: Well, winter will come when nobody of power cares for the dream of Atlantis, as opposed to the mechanism of Atlantis. The Thunderer thunders, but his dream has returned to its clashing images of faded violence. Yes, he was my kinsman, but I don't think I overstate the case when I say he might be thought of in future books as the true crafter of modern Atlantis.
You can't blame them. Humans have a tendency to forget history and muddle it up, inadvertently from shortcomings, or otherwise from agendas other than truth.
Haha, I was mistaken on the last point: the Thunderer's son said yesterday that Atlantis bears the sigil of 'the master builder' who was the Gnome.
Post a Comment
<< Home