Bin Ramke
Sayings of the Desert Fathers*

The Dark as Memorial to Light

"While the ship is at sea, it consumes itself like a candle, prey to dangers of wind and of wave. When it reaches harbor, it no longer shines on its own calamities, waves or winds. While you are among men you must waste yourself in bright defenses. But when you reach the harbor of silence, you have no need for burning."

The Scribe Who Would Eat No Bread

One came begging him to copy a book. He copied leaving out phrases, leaving out punctuation. One said, "There are words missing." He said, "Read the ones you have then come back for more."

Truly, I have seen monks fleeing, leaving their white-washed cells and also their parchments, and they did not close the doors, but left leaving doors open.

Some said of him that he had a furrow in his chest from the tears which fell all his life while he sat at his work. When they learned that he was dead, they said, weeping, "Truly you are blessed, for you wept for yourself in this world! He who does not weep for himself now will weep eternally; it is impossible not to weep, either now or in memory."

A Form of Greed, or Gratitude

It was also said of him that on Saturday evenings, preparing for the glory of Sunday, he would turn his back on the sun and stretch out his hands towards the east until once again the sun shone on his face. Then he would sit down.

Who receives something from another because of his poverty or his need has therein his reward, and because he is ashamed, when he repays it he does so in secret. But it is the opposite for the mad; they receive in secret, but repay in the presence of the angels, the archangels and the righteous.

Toward a Name for All and None

Another time when he was living with disciples on the borders of Persia two of the others went hunting. They spread nets around an area of forty miles or more, to kill everything within the nets. Seeing him all hairy and looking like a wild man they said, "Tell us if you are a man or a ghost. Tell us if you are Orion." He said, "I am a man who has come away to weep for his sins." They said to him "There is no god save the sun, the fire, and the water, which we worship." He said to them, "There is no god save the wind, the mint, and the fishes, which we worship." And they said to him "There is no god save the torments, the tortures, and the terrors, which all fear." And he said to them "There is no god save the totality, and the indifference, and the denigration, which no one escapes."

In the Realms of the Pronouns

While traveling through a certain region, he saw one whom someone had seized believing he had killed another. He went and questioned him. Learning that he had been wrongly accused, he said to those holding him, "Where is the dead man?" They showed him to him. Telling them to pray, he went to him. Stretching his hand toward heaven, he stood up. He said to him in front of them, "Tell us who killed you" He said, "As I was going into the church I gave that one alms. He killed me, then he threw me into the vestry. Therefore I beseech you to take the money and give it to my heirs." Then he said to him "Go and rest until one comes to waken you."

If a Man Cannot Understand My Silence, He Will Never
Understand My Words
                                                              Anthony of Sourozh

The Dead Remain Dead

The first one, leaving his own dead, went to weep over the other's; this was how he served his necessary god, with intentions elegant and full of sweetness. It was said, for instance, of one that he killed a basilisk. Going into the desert for water he saw a basilisk, upon which seeing he threw himself eyes down into the sand saying, "Either I die or he does," upon which speaking the basilisk burst into silent flames.

About the Measure of Abstinence

In food and drink, they said, one should partake in a measure somewhat less than one's actual need, that is, not to fill the stomach completely. One should establish a measure for oneself, whether in cooked food or in wine. The measure of abstinence is not limited to food and drink but embraces also conversations, sleep, garments, poetry, passion and all the senses. Each of these should have its own measure of abstinence.

How to establish a measure of food and drink, at less than one's need? Take away one ounce from the total quantity of bread and other foods. As regards water and wine taken together, take away less than half a cup. It would be well to drink only once a day; if you must, drink twice a day, but each time less than you need. When thoughts are troubled, the quantity of food and drink should be reduced; food by another ounce and all drink by a cup, so that in all food is reduced by two ounces and drink by one cup.

The Measure of Weeping

"While we have time, let us learn to be silent. Be dead in relation to every one, and you will find peace. I speak here touching thoughts, touching all kinds of activities, relationships with men, women, dogs, cats and cares."

"Do you wish to be free of afflictions and not to be burdened by them? Expect greater ones, and you will find peace."

"Who allows himself to be evil and the cause of evils disagrees with no one, quarrels with no one, is not wroth with anyone, but considers every man better and wiser than himself."

The Nature of Fame

He questioned him, saying "If I go away to weep for my sins, how should I live?" And he said "If you live somewhere, do not seek to be known for anything special; do not say, for example, I do not go to the agora; or perhaps, I do not eat grapes, for these things make an empty reputation and later you will be sorry, for men rush to where they find these practices." He said to him "Then what shall I do?" He said "Wherever you live, follow the same manner of life as everyone else, and if you see peaceful ones do the same and you will be at peace. For this is humility, to see yourself to be the same as the rest. When they see you do not go beyond limits, they will consider you to be the same as everyone and no one will trouble you."

A Purging of the Fellow-Feeling

In every desert there grow two plants, called (in these corrupt days) spurge and purslane. They are sisters of the soil. The one cures, the other kills; or, they both kill, they both cure. They grow in broad patterns, intricate as weavings of the desert peoples. One is the shadow, one is the shadow.

It happens that we have two of many things, parts of the body to give us company—the ear is the ear's dear companion, the hand the hand's. So strange then the loneliness of the genital, the heart.

kaaba or The Orient

qibla, the sacred direction (orientation)
the body lies in its grave on its side, facing the qibla.

A Beginning for a Poem Could Be

was broken
brocen wurde                              the battle of malden

So We Must Reinvent Forgetting

the young and the old are frightened by orphans
but middle age is intrigued—the orphan is everywhere
at home, unhindered. And the orphan finds,

everywhere, something

every thing is an orphan

cry: to call upon the citizens for help      the Quirites

Vector, Arrow, Carrier

a scalar field has only one attribute: for instance, ink on a page. The temperature of a room. But wind is non-scalar—velocity and direction. But also temperature, and color, and cause, and consequence. A candle flame vector-like in shape and color.

Humility

Theophrastus replaced Aristotle as head of the Academy. Who replaced Theophrastus?

The Ground Itself, Humus

Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence (Isaac of Ninevah) a truly humble being wishes to form himself into himself, to become nothing as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself within himself he is God.

It is One's duty to erase himself completely. To joyfully find the most efficient path through all points of the space into which he is born to erase those points—space-filling curves which pass through every point of the region of his life. To pierce, penetrate, clarify.

Erasure of Aristotle. One must erase also the Academy. A mutation alteration defacement and disappearance, a new verb disappear appeared in the papers about that time, the American secrecy a

Boy believes he is riding the shoulders of a giant of the world his father they float alone a whiteness of crushed seashell a road they witness the night the path between home and not home the heavy bearing of a boy's father ridden by ghastly memory then the sound of feet one then another are real a rising of reality into the path the paradoxical dark the danger fathers arising with the moon a shadow cast cost of shadows lost a rising like new moon

event and its further form eventual
even and evening

Those who suffer the need for things must against their very will amass mere things—"sometimes I need stuff" he said against tears, tearing of his home apart the walls he had made of journals stacked;

I do not see the bird in the grape vine
I do not touch the bird in the grape vine
but I see his shadow as sunlight burns
greenly through the leaf
I hear his voice violate the heart the heat of the air.

can we imagine that the Eden serpent and the dove of the holy spirit are
first cousins
Peter Greenaway

____________________________
* After (with distortions) the sayings of Abraham, Amones, Barsanuphius, John Cassian, Miletius, Motius, Poemen-called-The-Shepherd, and Megethius; translations by Benedicta Ward, SLG,
and others.