(name day)

As an expression of a personality
to try to imagine the beginnings of a face
or a name or a body of water is pointless
when faces     names and bodies of water lack a beginning lack an end
These enormous lakes and rivers never arise
nor do they ever completely disappear     they just get bigger
or smaller
By way of example Victoria Lake (69000 km2) runs off
via the Nile (6700 km long) into the Mediterranean
on to Gibraltar     New York
I could continue for a long time – erect long catalogs
samples     encyclopedias     names of children who
grow up and become bigger than their parents     different types of
networks     generic memories of how Jerusalem Delivered
invokes The Aeneid which in turn invokes The Odyssey and so on
– but this is not an argument     it is just an attempt
to bring you into a new meaning     as in a dawning
(or darkening) beyond the leaves this spring

(Fredrik Nyberg, from “You . . .” in A Different Practice, trans. Jennifer Hayashida.)

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