.
Willow Mill: Albrecht Dürer, 1496-1498, watercolour and gouache on paper, 251 x 367 mm (Kunsthalle, Bremen)
To drift away from them, without slipping
always into these recursive
eddies -- the helpless leaf spinning
in the unseen current, the descent
beyond the tranquility of the millpond
into the unexpected hidden maelstrom,
the concealed swirling mêlee, all these late
disorienting riverine reminders
discerned from the anxious banks
during the departure from the outskirts
of the quiet village, perched
at the edge and margin of
the known world, back
.....................and again down down
into the middle
ages. And after night
fall: forever the restless flood
of the memoria, the walls
of the town quarry crumbling, collapsing
the stove-in temporal
node detaching from the landlocked
superstructure, breaking away
gradually, in sections
much as a thawing northern ice-floe
separating itself from the mass
and tumbling into oceanic empty space...
those depths... is this history then?
always into these recursive
eddies -- the helpless leaf spinning
in the unseen current, the descent
beyond the tranquility of the millpond
into the unexpected hidden maelstrom,
the concealed swirling mêlee, all these late
disorienting riverine reminders
discerned from the anxious banks
during the departure from the outskirts
of the quiet village, perched
at the edge and margin of
the known world, back
.....................and again down down
into the middle
ages. And after night
fall: forever the restless flood
of the memoria, the walls
of the town quarry crumbling, collapsing
the stove-in temporal
node detaching from the landlocked
superstructure, breaking away
gradually, in sections
much as a thawing northern ice-floe
separating itself from the mass
and tumbling into oceanic empty space...
those depths... is this history then?
Quarry: Albrecht Dürer, 1506, watercolour and gouache on paper, 225 x 287 mm (British Museum, London)
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