Saturday, December 27, 2008

Dear Maud,

Softly, from another realm, a message comes: more awaits you.

This I heard, Maud, on holiday. I was walking, at night, in a darker place, when a meteor – a match struck against the sky – drew me up. The heavens, I sensed, held a message.

At times, man contacts man by means of light, and by means of a code: the dots and dashes of mute Mr Morse. At night, man is confronted by dots alone: a speckling of stars in the yawning sky. To know all, he must join the dots.

This, Maud, I tried. Fleetingly, I saw the sky as a riddled cowl; a veil through which we glimpse the true sun; a shroud laid at birth to be raised at our earthly end.

Death, it seems, is no unending night, but eternal light.

Inevitably, the city returns us to earth, for its signs, though nearer, are no less unknowable: variously, they advertise ‘digital perms’, ‘controlled touching’ and, happily, a ‘turn-key solution’.

More awaits you, Maud – here and now!

Yours etc.

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