Etel Adnan's Requiem for a Lost Paradise

For Literary Hub, Etel Adnan reflects on living and aging amidst the ongoing California wildfires. "My preoccupation, now, concerns a requiem that I have to write; it cannot be for planet Earth, as it is slowly dying, but not dead," writes the poet and artist. "What’s gone is the earthly paradise it once was." More from this:

There’s a dilation of the senses under the heat. Wind surfing on the shore. The summer is drifting, becoming a cloud, the summer is raining.

There’s a relation between an inner light which is mine, and the world’s exuberance, for example my need to turn to Heraclitus, periodically. There’s an equilibrium we all possess, while it eludes us, and the possibility, regardless, of swimming twice in the same river…but when, and where…

The world’s energy showed itself in this particular day through the tides: the longest tide in years, it was said, and I watched it, before it disappeared. Sitting at the edge of the unique, long street of Dahouet, closest to the ocean, I looked and looked at the narrow strait where the mounting waters formed a river having the deep and shining green color of pine, hurrying upstream, carrying my senses with it. It’s worth giving one’s life for a moment like this.

Please continue reading at Lit Hub.