Cities are the most beautiful works of art. Every other form is constrained within its medium to some extent. Painting is often abstract, its beauty relies too much on the beholder and writing is too contextual. Cities on the other hand pull you in. The notion of the sublime, every street its own art form, every corner a different stroke and stanza. It's overt in its great and towering designs while the cobbled sidewalks and chipped marble lend so much subtlety to it. Art explodes from within - stage productions, sidewalk painters, poets, sculptors all meshing together to create something abundant with life and beauty. The unsaid, which sticks in your throat and sleeps in your brain. Raw and unrefined on every corner of every street, its luminescence visible even from space.
-
And there it is, why privilege grief when beauty is so abundant in this world? From the cracks in architecture to the ink in books, beauty - unabashed, unconfined, uncontrollable beauty in the smallest of everything. You just have to look harder to find it. So my place in this world. Life is only on earth. What strain of beauty can I leave on a universe that will outlive me by a billion years? Maybe when time loops back upon itself we'll all have a second shot to fulfill the dreams we built. I have so much to express, it exudes from every atom in my body and yet I am fraught with self doubt and this sense of lacking. There is a romantic and a cynic fighting for control of my head. But perhaps it takes both to find the measure of a person.
"Its luminescence visible even from space."
ReplyDeleteI really like that line, and it's beautifully true. Cities possess the kind of allure that's not limited to the space inside our heads, but has the capacity of inhabiting -actual, outer space-! Or at least orbit! :P And then after contemplating the vastness and sheer fecundity of a city and its visibility (nothing but a blip) in the even more incomprehensible endlessness of space, we come back to the individual in the second fragment, because that's what everything's about, isn't it? The individual and how, in the end, we are all a little insecure, a little frightened by our own insignificance. It's lovely. :)
This comment is in danger of becoming longer than the actual piece. I'm sorry. I do very much enjoy your writing, and you must have faith in it, because it is tattooed all over with gorgeous imagery!
I think cities are just amazing. They get in your head, under your skin, everywhere. And yes, the vastness of the world external from your own is just too much to comprehend sometimes haha. In all fairness there was an eternity before we were born and there will be an eternity after we die so all we have is this little |inbetween| right? Doesn't that make you feel both large and microscopic at the same time? Oh and thanks it means lots! =)
ReplyDelete