Notes

not an opening up but a topping-up
there was not one inch to add
or lustre to take away
we fit in the presence of things
old writers with head-rummages

then it happened to us:
that we cannot decipher
the blue breath
of words in the mountain
have no understanding
why frogs
crack their knob-sticks in the rush
we have forgotten
the eternal rustling
like growth and decay

the tongue writhes
in the darkness
and the hollows of
imagination
like the ant-eater
hungry
for meaning
snouts
in the night's body
and we sometimes only still taste
the salt
of remembering on the lips
when a rumour
of eternity
blows as wind from the cliffs

and we sometimes only still taste
ants will fetch us
carrying us letter by letter
to the underground
mirror
of eternal namelessness
where the full moon
walks on the water

These scrolls/flags/banners/cloths/ shrouds originated at a retrospective exhibition of my paintings at the Frans Hals Museum in Harlem, the Netherlands, a couple of years ago. The curators wanted to exhibit the "written" part of

my art as well, not only the "visual" and I suggested a series of long banners with words/poems and images on them. At the back of my mind were the examples of Tibetan prayer rugs with mandalas containing formulas and figures used for meditation; also, Chinese scrolls, often of landscapes (suggesting journeys) with calligraphic poems written on them - objects, in other words, that one could roll up and carry with you from place to place, serving as text book, or map, or diary of one's travels. As soon as one starts painting words, they turn into images. Sound, in other words, turns into colour, and the relationships between words create their meaning, compelling one to express the meaning in images. These images are rhythms - precursors ("voorbeelde", in Afrikaans) of the primordial urge in the human consciousness to make sense of the unknown in terms of sound and colour - that repeat one another in a constant exchange of associations. Consciousness is sound in space. And that is when I started dreaming of these book cloths.¹

¹ Breyten Breytenbach (2001) Boekdoek/Lappesait, New York: Besteblaar, page 1.

Literature

Breyten Breytenbach (2001) Boekdoek Lappesait, New York: Besteblaar, illustrated in colour, unpaginated.