Thinking outside the Arsenal

When was it, last year, the

year before? I was standing

in front of the Arsenal in

Venice, looking at your sta-

tue. You nearly always stand

slightly turned away in your

statues, looking to one side,

as though you wish to avoid 

a conversation.. That after-

noon I had read something a-

bout the divine in a book a-

bout Plato, about how the

Greeks, in moments of terrify-

ing catastrophe or delirious

joy, those moments when every-

thing about our lives becomes

dazzlingly visible in a light

of almost unbearable intensity,

would have an experience of the

divine.. Some gods are still

feared and worshipped, others

languish in books and museums..

they can still rely on their

beauty, but no longer on their

power. Where did the problem be-

gin for you Olympians? With Soc-

rates, who, by constantly think-

ing aloud, began the process of

removing magic from the world,

even though he believed in the

immortality of the soul? 

Or was it earlier, with Xeno-

phanes, who accused Hesiod and

Homer of having given the gods

all manner of negative human 

habits - adultery, jealousy, 

deceit ..? Did you ever devote

any attention to such thoughts?

Of course, that means my writing

to you is a paradox, because the

letter assumes you still exist,

but please allow me my questions..

 Cees Nooteboom
 Laura Watkinson
   translation
 Letters to Poseidon
   Letter xx [fragment]
 Maclehose Press, 2014©