Gargoyle in Violet
@sedsemperamor
October 2013
Il faut collectionner les pierres qu’on vous jette. C’est le début d’un piédestal.”
‘You must collect the stones thrown at you. They are the beginnings of a pedestal.’
Hector Berlioz
I can’t play poker. I am panicked by numbers, inadequate at stratagem and I don’t have the face. The poker face. I am more akin to the little children running in circles, screaming or being carried from the fire drill by Arnold Schwarzenegger, in ‘Kindergarten Cop’.
Stone: solid, permanent, robust, “cool and quiet”. Unlike me.
In the poem of the same name, the Serbian born, U.S. Poet Laureate, Charles Simic explores possible responses to the “vileness and stupidity” of life:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/simic.html
“Poetry is a place where all the fundamental questions are asked about the human condition.”
Charles Simic
A stone is self-contained, tenacious, unflustered, “slow, unperturbed”. It is neither gentle, like the dove nor violent like the “tiger’s tooth”. The stone has an inner contentment with its own being and inner life.
“I am happy to be a stone”
It is a puzzle, a riddle to outsiders; it is at peace with itself. Its simplicity belies its ability to bear huge weights and absorb great influxes.
The stone’s enigmatic power draws others to itself with effort. It is not needy, loud or flashy. As it sinks slowly to the river bed,
“the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.”
And when two such stones get together, “sparks fly out”. Far from being dull, inert, lifeless, these stones are creative, intuitive, fiery, imaginative, full of life. When seen correctly, they have quiet, delicate inner beauty and light:
“a moon shining
…as though behind a hill”
which reveals a mysterious, inner relationship with others:
“Only poetry can measure the distance between ourselves and the Other.”
Charles Simic
The poetic stone inhabits a magical, tranquil and creative world of “star-charts” and “strange writings”. But the crazy world doesn’t always recognise the strength of character and gentle self-belief within a calm, quiet exterior.
The stones in our lives anchor, guide and shelter us. They cool us in the blazes of despair and destruction and throw a shadow across the heat of anger. They create a spark to illuminate the darkness of self-doubt and memorialise the hope of peace.
“Remembrance restores possibility to the past, making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again.”
Giorgio Agamben
To conclude, dear reader, I shall leave you to “go inside a stone” with three musical suggestions (none of which include Lady Gaga.)
Firstly, ‘Steam Train Girl’ by Teleman:
“What does it mean to be a rolling heart
Gathering moss because you’re stuck so fast?”
Secondly, try ‘Lost and Found’ by the ever lovely Echo and the Bunnymen:
“In the darkness that surrounds me
I am falling down again”
And my personal favourite, with a haunting official video, ‘I Love You’ by Woodkid:
“After all I drifted ashore
Through the streams of oceans
Whispers wasted in the sand”
sedsemperamor 