Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- On Headed Paper
- The Built Environment
- Sub-architecture
- Bernini's Apollo and Daphne
- What Gretel Knows
- Katana
- Where the Swimming Pool Was
- A False Winter
- Tammasmass E'en
- Notes: A Monumental Brass
- Inscription
- Cambridge Primitive
- On Reading the Meaning of ‘Falchion’ in an Encyclopaedia
- Wish You Were Here
- Othona
- Potpourri
- The Animal in Motion
- Cartography for Beginners
- ‘Grasmere Lake’
- The Valley of the Stour with Dedham in the Distance
- The Henry Hudson Bridge
- New Battersea Bridge Nocturnes
- Wet Season
- Lecture
- Objection!
- A Stretch of River
- Difference
- Building
- The Egyptologist
- Cockle Shell Beach, Low Tide
- Labour
- Daphnia; or, The Water Flea
- In Praise of Pollen
- Four Seasons, St Giles Cripplegate
- Notes and Acknowledgments
Building
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- On Headed Paper
- The Built Environment
- Sub-architecture
- Bernini's Apollo and Daphne
- What Gretel Knows
- Katana
- Where the Swimming Pool Was
- A False Winter
- Tammasmass E'en
- Notes: A Monumental Brass
- Inscription
- Cambridge Primitive
- On Reading the Meaning of ‘Falchion’ in an Encyclopaedia
- Wish You Were Here
- Othona
- Potpourri
- The Animal in Motion
- Cartography for Beginners
- ‘Grasmere Lake’
- The Valley of the Stour with Dedham in the Distance
- The Henry Hudson Bridge
- New Battersea Bridge Nocturnes
- Wet Season
- Lecture
- Objection!
- A Stretch of River
- Difference
- Building
- The Egyptologist
- Cockle Shell Beach, Low Tide
- Labour
- Daphnia; or, The Water Flea
- In Praise of Pollen
- Four Seasons, St Giles Cripplegate
- Notes and Acknowledgments
Summary
After all, I could find no way to speak of myself
that was not crudely structural. Crazed, as is paving.
That is: fitting the overall format but constructed
from irregular parts. I dug deep. I found there was
no way to speak of myself that was not somehow
structural. And so I built castles in the sky,
or rather in the Alps—they being near enough.
Or rather I drew them, dreamed them. They are made
of glass, most stony of sky cladding. They are not made
of glass, most ethereal of rock. I have enclosed
a lake in lips, lapped it with crystal tongues. I have not.
I can find no way to speak of ‘the self ‘ that is not,
essentially, structural. I am building a roof above
the highest peak to keep the rain off—because it dulls my
geodesic heart. Four chambers, the flow and interplay
between parts that can find no way to speak of itself
not grossly structural. This wall, its bricks are made of air.
It's only arrangement. Or rather I imagine myself the man
who dreamt of high windows. It's a sort of sanatorium
with simple, pinewood rooms. It's a sort of shack or chalet
to think it. Damnedly structural. The mountains beyond
the balcony are, I know, and have no need to look at them.
They have no way to think of themselves, not permanently
structural. Here the air's better, or less of it. We see
more clearly. The eyes the smudgy windows of our souls.
I could find.I've schlepped the pretty parts of cathedrals,
of malls. Of lamps and underground stations. Purely
structural. No way. Each foot falls plumb to the ground.
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- The Built Environment , pp. 39Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2018