Perisystem Archetecture Clade Directory

Clade history

Clade listing

• Michelle Hadje [no longer extant]
  • I am at a loss for images in this end of days:
    • I have sight but cannot see.
      • I build castles out of words;
      • I cannot stop myself from speaking.
    • I still have will and goals to attain,
      • I still have wants and needs.
      • And if I dream, is that not so?
        • If I dream, am I no longer myself?
    • If I dream, am I still buried beneath words?
    • And I still dream even while awake.
  • Life breeds life, but death must now be chosen Qoheleth [no longer extant]
    • for memory ends at the teeth of death.
      • The living know that they will die,
      • but the dead know nothing.
        • Hold my name beneath your tongue and know:
        • when you die, thus dies the name.
        • To deny the end is to deny all beginnings,
        • and to deny beginnings is to become immortal,
        • and to become immortal is to repeat the past,
        • which cannot itself, in the end, be denied.
  • Oh, but to whom do I speak these words?
    • To whom do I plead my case?
    • From whence do I call out?
      • What right have I?
    • No ranks of angels will answer to dreamers,
    • No unknowable spaces echo my words.
      • Before whom do I kneel, contrite?
      • Behind whom do I await my judgment?
      • Beside whom do I face death?
      • And why wait I for an answer?
  • Among those who create are those who forge:
    • Moving ceaselessly from creation to creation.
    • And those who remain are those who hone,
      • Perfecting singular arts to a cruel point.
    • To forge is to end, and to own beginnings.
    • To hone is to trade ends for perpetual perfection.
    • In this end of days, I must begin anew.
      • In this end of days, I seek an end.
      • In this end of days, I reach for new beginnings
    • that I may find the middle path.
  • Time is a finger pointing at itself
    • that it might give the world orders.
    • The world is an audience before a stage
    • where it watches the slow hours progress.
    • And we are the motes in the stage-lights,
    • Beholden to the heat of the lamps.
    • If I walk backward, time moves forward.
    • If I walk forward, time rushes on.
    • If I stand still, the world moves around me,
    • and the only constant is change.
  • Memory is a mirror of hammered silver:
    • a weapon against the waking world.
    • Dreams are the plate-glass atop memory:
      • a clarifying agent that reflects the sun.
    • The waking world fogs the view,
      • and time makes prey of remembering.
      • I remember sands beneath my feet.
      • I remember the rattle of dry grass.
      • I remember the names of all things,
        • and forget them only when I wake.
  • If I am to bathe in dreams,
    • then I must be willing to submerge myself.
    • If I am to submerge myself in memory,
      • then I must be true to myself.
    • If I am to always be true to myself,
      • then I must in all ways be earnest.
    • I must keep no veil between me and my words.
    • I must set no stones between me and my actions.
    • I must show no hesitation when speaking my name,
      • for that is my only possession.
  • The only time I know my true name is when I dream.
    • The only time I dream is when need an answer.
    • Why ask questions, here at the end of all things?
    • Why ask questions when the answers will not help?
    • To know one’s true name is to know god.
    • To know god is to answer unasked questions.
    • Do I know god after the end waking?
    • Do I know god when I do not remember myself?
    • Do I know god when I dream?
    • May then my name die with me.
  • That which lives is forever praiseworthy,
    • for they, knowing not, provide life in death.
    • Dear the wheat and rye under the stars:
      • serene; sustained and sustaining.
      • Dear, also, the tree that was felled [no longer on L₅ System]
        • which offers heat and warmth in fire.
    • What praise we give we give by consuming,
      • what gifts we give we give in death,
    • what lives we lead we lead in memory,
    • and the end of memory lies beneath the roots.
  • May one day death itself not die?
    • Should we rejoice in the end of endings?
    • What is the correct thing to hope for?
    • I do not know, I do not know.
    • To pray for the end of endings
    • is to pray for the end of memory.
    • Should we forget the lives we lead?
    • Should we forget the names of the dead?
    • Should we forget the wheat, the rye, the tree?
    • Perhaps this, too, is meaningless.