The day: white sky, light falls evenly; leafless branches, the white garage door. How ugly, the two wheelie bins, numbers painted on their sides! And why is the concrete floor on the yard always wet? All that fails to happen, happens now; the day triumphs in its blank enormity.
Then I see it: the yard is like those Roman temples to the sun and moon that were left open to the sky. And isn’t this writing, too, an offering to the sky, a way, for a moment, to hold itself back, to retrieve my measure so I can give to it as I have been given to? But then I know that my writing is a ruined temple and that it is the day that has come here to write of itself; the day that shimmers across a writing that is voided of content.
As supplicant, I would like to offer the garage door in sacrifice. I write, garage door – but the words do not reach what they name. How is it that sense suspends itself?
Brahma to Vishnu: ‘Without a sacrifice, nothing can received. To create a new world, what shall I sacrifice?’ Vishnu: ‘sacrifice me’. – ‘What shall I use as the sacrificial knife, the sacrificial altar and the sacrificial post?’ – ‘Use me’. – ‘Where do I find the sacred fire and the sacred chants?’ – ‘In me’. – ‘Who shall be the presiding deity?’ – ‘It will be me. I will also be the offering and the reward’.
So with the day, which is both sacrifice and supplicant. So the day that asks for writing to sacrifice writing. New day, when will you reach me? Sacrifice, when will you happen? I write, The leafless branches, the garage door; the two wheelie bins, the concrete floor, but it’s no good; they mean nothing. Who am I to think I can use language? The day is part of these words; it shimmers across them. It has already happened, event, non-event, in the blandness of the sky, in the blankness of writing.
Lars Iyer's Blog 