What it is to come within her range of perception

Denn das Schöne ist nichts
als das Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,
und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht,
uns zu zerstören. Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.

Because it so serenely disdains to destroy us

Please not an airport. Please not Duino Elegy I. Please not a metaphor.

Can you look in the spirit of Gertrude Stein’s saying, “One sees what one sees”?

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It may be impossible. It certainly may be absurd to say “One.”

Testament

Reflected from horsehide, light glows in a specific horsehide way. Wanting to believe that having seen the glow has conveyed it to me, I may try to prove my possession by making a bequest. I may try to write a poem about the light, for instance, as Rilke did in his horse poem dedicated to Tolstoy, Sonette an Orpheus I.20.

As if I could declare my desire to live on in the language of horselight. Of course I can’t. In this document the mortal words and their desperate good-luck symbol constitute one vocabulary and the horses in undying light constitute another. For the language of testament no translation is available.

Source: The Official State Atlas of Kansas Compiled from Government Surveys, County Records and Personal Investigations. Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1887. http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~23597~830077:A-group-of-stallions-and-mares,-Lin. Photoshopped.