Here it is a February again, and I am deep inside an epic poem...again.
This time it is Lord Byron's Don Juan.
What I want to say is that normally I am in the habit of annotating (with underlines, inserts, strokes and margin ephemera) the "great works" when I read them; figuring, I guess, that in case my years don't allow me to read them whole again, I can at least revisit the passages that moved me the first time through.
This time, however, I am going to try to stay in the moment, as when I'm at a concert or ballet, and I realize that the art before me, no matter how dazzling or eternal, is over when it's over.
Don Juan is ripe with ingenious rhymes, insightful (if sometimes callous) observations, and acres of sustained poetic discipline. I am reading it as though I am the live performer who cannot pause or repeat a line to savor it, but must continue with the work: remaining an instrument of the art form.
It has taken a new kind of reading discipline on my part. It is more akin to holding a moment as it passes; as I do each day with my family and "real life," than reading. I find that I can still marvel and sigh at the eloquence; it is just that much more poignant knowing that I may never experience it again.
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