Unshaken

I wonder if writing can be separated from life. Going to work in the morning, then coming home, eating dinner, reading the papers and getting down to creating. Writing for yourself in the evenings or on Saturdays and Sundays. Having an orderly, logical life, and saving the contradictions and unease for certain moments only. And at the same time being a great poet.

I haven't managed it. To be honest, I never even dreamed of it. The poetry that engulfed me and that I embraced with delight has taken over my entire life. I cannot make it ordinary again, I can no longer separate everyday affairs from the constant need to create. I do not know how to look at the world objectively, I have not managed to arrange my relations with people in any normal way. I know that I am an artist, I know that I must be different. I have grown accustomed to the difficulties that this awareness brings. I no longer react to the laughter of those around me, I am no longer irritated by indulgence or hidden irony. I live as only a poet can live. And I am proud of it.

I remember the day it all began. I was walking through the city, although it was raining without cease. I looked at the buildings — familiar, but not seen for a long time. I recalled the first emotions their sight had stirred in me, and that fascination with the city which had then overtaken me. Nowhere had I felt so well, nowhere, I thought then, had I experienced beauty with such intensity. I believed that the trembling which seized my body whenever a new panorama appeared around a street corner was the proof of my sensitivity, of my sensuous perception of art. It was at that precise moment that I decided to devote my life to this faculty. Besides, the singularity of the city was not merely a source of emotion; walking through it, I felt an inspiration rising within me, provoked by the architecture or perhaps by the simple awareness of being in that place. So I would stop sometimes, take out a notebook and write what seemed to me immensely important, unique and revelatory. I was proud of my gaze upon beauty, of the way I lived it. Sometimes, instead of the notebook, I would take a book and read. Then too the trembling would appear, my thoughts embracing the work with ease, reinforcing the conviction that I had been right to consecrate my life to beauty. From that day on, it was this city that came to mind whenever I doubted I had made the right choice. And I did not give up.

Much later, I returned to that city. The rain had stopped and I looked at the puddles where the outlines of the surrounding buildings were reflected. And once again I trembled, sensing the depth and infinite richness of art. I was deciphering them on the surface of puddles.

There was a time when I tried to explain all this to others. My mother, for instance. She wanted me to study law or medicine, something solid, something you can show to the neighbours. When I told her I was a poet, she fell into a terrible silence, more wounding than any mockery. Then she asked whether I at least intended to keep my job on the side. She did not understand that art is not practised on the side. Art is the centre. Everything else is on the side. I could see she was worried about me. But I was not afraid. I knew that poetry would prevail in the end.

And then there was Martha. Martha who loved my early texts, who said my images were of a rare beauty, that nobody wrote like me. For a few months, I believed I had found the only person capable of understanding me. I would read her my poems in the evening, and she would close her eyes to listen more closely. It was beautiful. It was exactly what a poet needs: a soul that receives. But Martha too grew impatient. She wanted me to publish, to contact journals, to take steps. She did not understand that a work must first exist fully before it gives itself to the world. A fruit picked too early is bitter. I told her this, and she looked at me with that expression I was beginning to know well — a mixture of tenderness and pity that made me furious. She left shortly after. She too, I think, was afraid for me. I did not try to hold her back. You do not hold back someone who does not know how to wait.

I know that more time is needed before my talent is discovered. But I am patient. Great works were not recognised immediately, and their creators had to endure the bitterness of incomprehension in solitude. The greatest poets were ignored in their lifetime, some never even published. I take comfort in such fine company. And when the pain becomes too sharp, I write. It is the only answer I know. I write until the words cover the wound like new skin. So I wait, as they did.

Although? — Perhaps I should show my latest texts to someone. I have not been feeling very well lately and I have not moved from here. Could I actually be afraid of that irony which, I feel, always surrounds me whenever I go out? No, that cannot be it. It is true that my heart is beating a little faster, but it is excitement, nothing else.

So why shouldn't I go today? I will just take all the sheets, put them in something, and I can be on my way. I know exactly what I will say. I will be dignified, I will be calm, I will not beg. I will simply lay the texts on the table and let the words speak for themselves. I stand up.

Well, no. There is still no handle.