Props
"Last night / you killed me with your smile…"
We are props to the plays of others
Dancing and weaving around us
exclaiming and confessing at us
they go about their scripts
And when the light of their presence moves away
We stand offstage,
lifeless, muted, dimmed
We are the roads others tread on,
unmoving scenery they speed by,
pursuing their dreams
We are flint and steel to light their fire,
candles to contain it,
water troughs to quench their thirst
paper to keep their deepest secrets
Never dreams or destinations,
(who chooses the road for destination?)
nor water, flame or secret
Yet we fade, wither, wear, burn out, evaporate;
become commonplace
when the light of their presence moves away
"So, what were you writing?" I ask.
She shrugs. "This and that. I just like playing with words. Sometimes they become something-a journal entry, a poem. Sometimes I’m just following words to see where they go."
"And where do they go?"
"Anyplace and everyplace."
She pauses for a moment and has a sip of her tea, sets the cup down on the low table between us. Later I realize she was just deciding whether to go on and tell me what she now does.
"You know, we’re like words," she says. "You and me. We’re like ghost words."[..]
"Okay," I say. "I’ll bite. What are ghost words?"
"They’re words that don’t really exist. They come about through the mistakes of editors and printers and bad proofreaders, and while they seem like they should mean something, they don’t. Like ‘cablin’ for ‘cabin,’ say."
I see what she means.
"I like that word," I tell her. "Cablin. Maybe I should appropriate it and give it a meaning."
Saskia gives a slow nod. "You see? That’s how we’re like ghost words. People can appropriate us and give us meanings, too." [..]
"That happens to everybody," I tell her. "It happens whenever someone decides what someone is like instead of finding out for real."
"I suppose."
"You’re thinking about all of this too much."
"I can’t seem to stop thinking about it."– Spirits in the wires, Charles de Lint
"-25 days since the moon faded… Time to stop counting."
