bridges

all quotes from the ravickians by renee gladman

"her entrance into my life came at a crossing, that of the great bridge connecting cit mohaly to cit sahaly. i no longer remember from which direction each of us was walking; it is equally possible to have been either - one was always moving back and forth between these enclaves. . . i was writing my first novel at the time and would have wanted to occupy both places simultaneously. so, it is more likely that i was not actually crossing the bridge, but standing directly in its center. in any case, it was not the beauty of the person approaching me that caught my attention; rather it was the title of the book in her hand, or to be precise, its typography. it seemed to go with whatever i had been thinking, because as she passed me, some instinct took over the body: before i could stop myself i had reached out and grabbed the book from her hand.

i had been sitting here trying to recall, with no luck, who spoke to whom first. i also find nothing that explains how we made our way to the railing of the bridge, nor what we did for most of that hour we spent together. i had given her back the book. that is clear. i see her holding it. but, in that memory, there is also the sense that something had opened between us. someone had said the right thing and propelled us into this conversation. words come back to me now - 'the elongated later,' 'your rare insides' - though these words had to have occurred in a different arrangement to have made sense. approaching also is the reflexive body, the torso sweeping down and the slender arm reaching for the other's opposite side."

"no matter how clear these words are to you, they were not written for my comprehension. ana patova's intentions have never quite reached me. her words flow in a linear, progressive fashion; however, always, it seems, toward erasure. the closer i get to the end of a sentence, the less certain i am of its beginning. while this quality is potentially interesting for creative or theoretic work, it is obstructive to everyday communication. we have thirty years of this."

"meeting a person on a bridge and standing there with her, not progressing to either end, but staying put or at most drifting conscientiously over to the side, imprints upon you the sense that you are hovering with the person. i harbor little expectation that ana patova and i will ever complete our conversations."

"in choosing the term 'installation' instead of the more familiar 'chapter' to section her book, ana patova had to have contemplated destruction. well for a long time, as a thing is being made, you cannot tell whether it is growing or dying. it is possible to confuse one for the other in this life."

"thirty years ago, ana patova and i thought we could pass our lives on this bridge, held in this conversation. then, it seemed that the grip that fixed us there was beginning to loosen and something had to change. perhaps, to put a table and drinks between us. but in which place? there were reasons for choosing either: cit sahaly because it was gorgeous and ancient and from it we could watch the spectacle at the other end of the bridge, or cit mohaly because it was the spectacle. these are my divisions, in retrospect. i cannot say as clearly what i understood then. ana patova had an extraordinary face - this is one thing. she was a thinker; we had that book in common. she was not exactly ravickian. these pieces i have extracted from my soft memory. there are many more. did i dream people smiling at us? did she grab my hand?

it must have been cit sahaly that we chose. this would have provided the better adventure, since neither of us lived there, and perhaps it was felt that we needed to move away from what was familiar. but you look back and realize how strange it is to make a decision, because you know that choosing to do one thing makes it impossible to do something else. you do the thing you chose but always there is this ghost of what would have happened had you. . . that a walk toward home would have implanted the combining shape of two in your bed, or that the mohalai light would have made living apart inconceivable - unfortunately, there were no indications that the actions to which you did commit would have necessitated the opposite.

i have flattened this point with my urgency. . .

it is important that i do not just stand here."

"these remaining poems are all i have regarding our great bridges. i spent the morning worrying if i end here, right at this moment, would i leave you with enough? i don't like the idea of your emptiness. that's why we have ventured out in our sleeping city, right? it is not possible to forget the bridges. yet, daily, we insulate against the prospect. stone doesn't vanish, though: it explodes. and we are not doing that here."

"night in those
books that lay

          the city
          of the center
                    in the crumble
          structure

that voice
calling out

          'names
          that do
          not know
          other names'

                    from the center
          of that thinking
deserted
          city
                    your book"

"-as the mind gives forth speech - schleser called it 'bandergewilden' (longing to be) - bridges are created. but they aren't beautiful; they are more like walkways. they are beautiful, but not treated as such. these bridges are the little words, the connectors, the articles, as they are called. prepositions. english users pronounce the relations between things instead of performing them as we would. in translation, i am stuck between oratory and dance."

"-what is so amazing?
-that it is still today
-has it been overlong?
-i would not have believed it possible. very much happened to me. it feels strange to ask, but if no one knows you how can you separate days?
-and amini, you feel you have not been known?
-not entirely this year
          'my ashen rooms'
-who said that?
-levric, when he was younger
-did he mean his lungs?
-i think it was for loda, his first wife
-the head cartographer?
-of so many years ago
-and you say these words now?
-the building i am always seeing through this window
-what would have happened were i not with you all this night?
-most things
-ana patrova, you have an ear this way?
-it is difficult to pretend women are not speaking
-'and do we eat with our hands'
-i have not heard that saying in years
-stays with me
-but it is too dark to see it now
-a bridge of things
-what do you want to see?
. . .
-all this night i have had intense horizontal energy
-and this table is on the verge of dissolve
-and we are
-and this is"

"-ana patova, you shocked me by meeting someone
-fifteen years ago
-then you stopped coming to the bridge
-it was moved
-and that person took your life
-it was mohaly that ravaged me
-never. i met someone today, but i could not keep her
-her name?
-that neither
-how can you be sure, then?
-sure of what?
-that anyone was there
-this time i was fortunate. she touched me
-unlike us, you're thinking
-we did not touch and your disappearance undid our meeting
-i was thinking
-of architecture, i know. but as a result i lost everything
-luswage amini, you are the great ravickian novelist. is that not enough?
-i am not complaining, ana patova. i want to say something, yet all i have are your words
-from so many years ago?
-'it is impossible on this bridge alone'
-the 'most', i think it was
-we have been at this thirty years
-the ravickian night is long, ana patova, it will not end
-
-that day the water looked like skin
-how luswage? don't change it
-i am not
-then how?
-in that distance, the rippling made layers and textured the surface somehow, a leather effect
-but why didn't you ever say this?
-i am saying it now
-after so long?
-it was only yesterday"

"and also sirin cucek you have transformed us with your translations. you have given us the first sketches of a new bridge, a transcendental shape, a way to re-conceive motion. you will tell me it is the poet of architecture who has done this. yes, in part. but it is not just the words of 'the exactitude and the ocean beside it'; it is also the figuring of that line through a language that has not relations to the exact, that has barely known water, it is the combination of these forces that has 'the neighbor pouring over my mouth.'

your mouth, sirindeska, looks right now as if it has been open for years, as if all it knows is open. i want to write that"

"-this bridge
-it is not possible that we are here again
-in thirty years we have stood at this mouth
-or the other mouth
-so many times that it's pointless to announce it
-we say goodbye again. i have overgrown this exchange
-yet you are the reason we must repeat it
-i?
-if you could enter the city with me
-to inhabit together?
-we have thirty years of this
-but you are city, already built
-no, awaiting structure
-the person i met did not know me
-to suggest otherwise is
-most
-after all this we are still alone
-they say even of ravicka
-still, we fill this night with reported sirens
-i wonder who will hear them
-zaoter will be first
-if he does not give in to sleep, some shadowed steps
-he will not go there before the sun is up
-where will he go, then?
-we are all walking this line and may or may not integrate
-as with the traffic confusion of three years ago; you were stuck in the middle of it. i could only half-see; tomas bello said he could only a quarter move. what happens after full exposure? have you become more a person?
-not yet, ana patova. and you. . . are you whole?
-no. i have completed only present tense
-the sky is grayer in that direction
-i do not see it
-so, the event begins
-for some of us
-sirin cucek's mother is a pianist. did you hear that?
-clearly
-imagine it
-i have been trying
-and the black streak there. . . do you see it
-that i have seen; it has been there since early night. before sofia even, when we were still vonzy
-bridge
-the self-same
-most. . . passageway
-that is, if you want the other side
-and the mist is new
-mist?
-let's cross now
-aren't we waiting? sometimes one just wants to hold here
-never to move, never to see
-i am working, luswage amini
-as am i
-city matter?
-night's
-you are back to the busses
-but someone else's route
-they are right then. . . you have found a lover
-no, i have waited
-we have to cross it
-this is true. again we will part
-the bifurcated bridge
-we will remain
-and regroup on the other side
-where the books meet
-and leaning structures"

"'many languages of this region share the same word for bridge. that word is most.' -ayse buldu"