...of imagination

Later, when, glancing over his shoulder, he sees the cave dwelling as nothing more than a rock among many others, the old man begins to sing. He has long since changed direction - what started out as an open plateau has acquired steep walls on all sides. Now he is roaming through a jungle almost all of whose trees are dead - roaming happily, as though triumphing every time he stumbles. He has kept on writing, but now he does it while walking, no longer in his book but in the air, drawing big letters. In a hoarse falsetto voice he sings:

Into the silence.
Alone into the silence.
Silence alone.
Where are you, silence?

You’ve always been good to me, silence.
I’ve always been happy in you, silence.
Time and again, I’ve become a child with you, silence;
through you I came into the world, silence;
in you I learned to hear, silence;
from you I acquired a soul, silence;
by you alone have I let myself be taught, silence;
from you alone have I gone as a man among men, silence.

Be to me again what you were, silence.
Embrace me, silence.
Take me under the armpits, silence.
Make me silent, silence;
and make me receptive, silence -
only receptive, silence.
I cry out to you, silence.
You above all, silence.

Silence, source of images.
Silence, great image.
Silence, imagination’s mother.

[Absence, Handke, P.]