Between the first and the last of anything worthwhile, most of what happens is a series of endlessly radiating paths, brilliant branches of first light and with these, miles upon acres of decisions––each loaded with portent and potential for disaster––and enough interruptions to challenge anybody with a scrap of sense to doubt their reasons for starting.
These hazardous undertakings are, it turns out, so utterly compelling that it cannot be helped. This is what we do: remake our worlds again, and again, either refusing the call to witness or taking it so fully to heart that the act evokes its full muscularity, the labor of it reminding with each strain, how difficult it is to bear these beams––even of light, especially when looking long and well.
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Inspired variously, including by William Blake: “We are put on the earth a little space/ That we may learn to bear the beams of love.”
