Renée Vivien: Japanese Reverie

Renée Vivien   
(1877-1909)

Japanese Reverie

I know not why this recollection forces the frequently closed door of my memory.
It was night-time, in a Japanese tea-house.
In a subdued ascension, the monotonous rhythm, the almost eternal rhythm of three cords were struck with regularity. Three notes, no more… A rhythm in the night…

But the moon was so large, so magnificently powerful, that prodigious stalks of bamboo were seen rising beyond a pool, – which, beneath the moon, took on all the mystery of the sacred pools in the enclosure of a temple. And the immense moon gave to these prodigious stalks the appearance of a dream.

For some time, a melancholy old woman, who was beautiful and a professional musician, played tirelessly… I cannot render this feeling of eternity, of the Eternity which, formerly, seemed terrible to me, incomprehensible and deadly… This strange intuition glided in my veins, with the rhythm of three notes repeated indefinitely, with the Japanese night, with the visage of the melancholy old musician… And little by little, … and little by little, my soul was appeased until there was a divine annihilation of death in the night…

Renée Vivien prose poem
kempis.nl poetry magazine

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