4.14.22

The poet writes so she may read. The more she writes, the more she reads. She remembers, knows, waits, and listens. Remembering oneself. Cixous tells us that writing is walking towards the self in the dark. The poet turns into a map, through which time writes itself into valleys, straits, plateaus, and other, more uncrossable distances like the spaces between people. Whatever it does, time cannot turn back into itself. 

At the monastery, the nun writes 知己 on the board. It is the traditional Chinese word for soulmate, she says with a smile. The first characer 知 - to know and 己 - oneself. The poet drinks these characters in like water. The poet has always known to write was to be on the way to oneself, how writing is an act of loving. 

Is the work of a poet to say and love what has been said or loved before? 
The more she writes, the less she has to say. She is breathless with remembering. 

It's clearer and clearer: writing, like living, has been done before. 
How beautiful then it is, to write anyways. 
To live, knowing how it always ends.