Selected Cronicas

WORDS PURELY PHYSICAL

In Italy, il miracolo is night fishing. Mortally wounded by the harpoon, the fish releases its crimson blood into the sea. The fisherman unloads his catch before sunrise, his face pale and intent in the knowledge that he is hauling the enormous load of miraculous fish over the sands: the miracle of love.

Milagre is the tear falling on the leaf. It trembles, escapes and falls: behold thousands of miraculous tears glistening on the grass.

The miracle has the sharp points of stars and much splintered silver.

Le miracle is a glass octagon which can be turned slowly in the palm of the hand. It remains in the hand, but only to be gazed at. It can be seen from all angles, very slowly, and on each side we see a glass octagon. Until suddenly, sensing danger and turning quite pale with emotion, we understand: in the palm of our hand we no longer hold an octagon but le miracle. From this moment onwards, we no longer see anything. We possess it.

To pass from the physical word to its meaning is to reduce it first to splinters, just as the firework remains a dull object until it is fated to become a brilliant flare in the sky and achieves its own death. (In its passage from being simply body to something maddened by love, the bee arrives at the supreme moment: it dies.)