I will unveil you to those I love, like a long stroke of summer lightning, as inexplicably as you showed yourself to me, Jeanne, on a morning made to your design when you led us from rock to rock up to that end of self we call a summit. Your face half-masked by the arm you bent, the fingers of your hand seeking your shoulder, you offered us at the end of our ascent a city, the sufferings and qualifications of a genius, the scattered surface of a desert, and the circumspect turning of a river, on whose bank some builders stood questioning. But quickly I came back to you, my Reaper, for you were consuming your offering. And neither time nor beauty nor chance which unbridles the heart could compare with you.
It was then I revived my ancient wealth, the wealth of all of us, and dominating what tomorrow will destroy, I remembered you were Anoukis the Clasper, just as incredibly as you were Jeanne, my best friend’s sister, and as inexplicably as you were the Foreigner to that miserable bellringer whose father always used to say Van Gogh was crazy.
[NK]