our dark greens of meaning

"What if we're here just for saying: house,

bridge, fountain, gate, jug, fruit tree, window, —

at most: column, tower . . . but for saying, understand,

oh for such saying as the things themselves

never hoped so intensely to be. Isn't this the sly purpose

of the taciturn earth, when it urges lovers on:

that in their passion each single thing should find ecstasy?"

—

"How we waste our afflictions!

We study them, stare out beyond them into bleak continuance,

hoping to glimpse some end. Whereas they're really

our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one

of the seasons of the clandestine year—; not only

a season—: they're site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode."

R.M. Rilke, Duino Elegies

[New Orleans, disposable film, 2014]