letters from barabbas

You reached down to catch me a frog, and reached up to show me a sleek green joy. Neither of us realized clutching tighter only killed them.
In return, I spoke of fireflies and steel and California. You would ask me what is an enigma, a monument, ambivalence: you'd mispronounce them all. I would ask you what is faith and newness and forgetting. Wouldn't you smile and call me silly, and think I was playing a game?
I'll withhold from you the monuments as long as I am able.
Content yourself to laugh and sing and hide under the table.

If you could read, perhaps you'd quote me Rilke:

And we: Spectators, always, everywhere,
looking at, never out of, everything!
It overfills us. We arrange it. It falls apart.
We rearrange it, and fall apart ourselves.

Who has turned us around like this, so that
always, no matter what we do, we're in the stance
of someone just departing? As he,
on the last hill that shows him all his valley
one last time, turns, stops, lingers--,
we live our lives, forever taking leave.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, you know....
And you would quote me Solomon, too:

Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed,
Or the golden bowl is broken,
Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
Or the wheel broken at the well.
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it.

"Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher.
"All is vanity."

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man's all.
For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.

[Rilke, Duino Elegies; Shakespeare, Hamlet; Ecclesiastes 12]