dreamscapes (betrayals) n° 14

Mary Shaw

29/11/2014

the emptiness at the center of hérodiade was weighing like a ton of bricks on my mind. i saw the laughing, terrible whirlpool that organized her matter. i saw a million men who wanted to plunge into it. and i saw duchamp's large glass broken too.

so i wanted to repair all this devastation. but thought, what can i, just a simple, aging woman do? i who have lingered in this earth-life for so long, and am yet still attached, tied absolutely, to all the bits of flesh that came from my own womb, not to mention all these thoughts that fling themselves out of nothingness.

what is worse, i'm not even sure where the flesh ends and the thoughts begin, or vice-versa, as happens always with you, this dream i will hold forever,

rocking in your arms forever,

ondine.

but happily i awoke to the words of wisdom you slid between the cracks. those reassure me and show me that my knowing, though it may give birth, is once and for all conjoined to something far greater, which i don't understand.

so you're not in charge.

and i am as much a child of that dream as each and every next one. and where i don't see a child, what else could there be but emptiness?

but in that emptiness you also reside.

Mary Shaw est professeure de littérature française des dix-neuvième et vingtième siècles à l'Université de Rutgers (New Jersey). Outre ses travaux universitaires, elle a publié deux livres pour enfants ainsi qu'un recueil de poésie intitulé Album Without Pictures (Halifax, N. S., Editions VVV, 2008).