Unimaginable Perhaps; But The Unimaginable Is There

He Would Not Mind Hearing Petrus's Story One Day. But Preferably Not Reduced To English. More And More He Is Convinced That English Is An Unfit Medium For The Truth Of South Africa. Stretches Of English Code Whole Sentences Long Have Thickened, Lost Their Articulations, Their Articulateness, Their Articulatedness. Like A Dinosaur Expiring And Settling In The Mud, The Language Has Stiffened. Pressed Into The Mold Of English, Petrus's Story Would Come Out Arthritic, Bygone"(117).

His Mouth Opens. From Inside Him Comes A Slow Stream, Without Breath, Without Interruption. It Flows Up Through His Body And Out Upon Me; It Passes Through The Cabin, Through The Wreck; Washing The Cliffs And Shores Of The Island, It Runs Northward And Southward To The Ends Of The Earth. Soft And Cold, Dark And Unending, It Beats Against My Eyelids, Against The Skin Of My Face.

The Devil Is Everywhere Under The Skin Of Things, Searching For A Way Into The Light.

You Think You Know What Is Just And What Is Not. I Understand. We All Think We Know." I Had No Doubt, Myself, Then, That At Each Moment Each One Of Us, Man, Woman, Child, Perhaps Even The Poor Old Horse Turning The Mill-wheel, Knew What Was Just: All Creatures Come Into The World Bringing With Them The Memory Of Justice. "but We Live In A World Of Laws," I Said To My Poor Prisoner, "a World Of The Second-best. There Is Nothing We Can Do About That. We Are Fallen Creatures. All We Can Do Is To Uphold The Laws, All Of Us, Without Allowing The Memory Of Justice To Fade.

I See No Marks Of Wordsworths Style Of Writing Or Style Of Thinking In My Own Work, Yet Wordsworth Is A Constant Presence When I Write About Human Beings And Their Relations To The Natural World.