There is a feeling actors have when they know they’ve played their part well, that is to say, when they have made their own gestures coincide with those of the ideal character they embody, having entered somehow into a prearranged design, bringing it to life with their own heartbeats. That was exactly what I felt: I had played my part well.
—Camus, Nuptials at Tipasa
When we are told: Do not love the world
We know it to mean: money, power, fame.
I understand, I see how I’m bound by lust, by pride.
But on June afternoons, when I say: I love the world
I mean: cloud, tree,
Purple iris under shade,
Thrill of breeze up hot skin.
Friends, scattered on continents,
Smiling in cafes or alongside great seas.
Children, laughing, recovering laughter for us
From the place where it dwells in the heart of all things.
The gift of days, unfurling. Depthless mystery of time.
Sand. And sunlight. Orange sun on orange lichen.
Tall windows, thrown open, and the weft of canvas
Soft under broken fingers.
Exertion, too, the overhand stroke, the promise of rest.
Even the biting and merciless insects, even them,
Conveying hunger and disease in their blood,
Indispensable half-notes in our symphonies of pain.
When I say: I love all of this
I mean: I want to play my part faithfully on its stage.
I want never to leave it, though leaving it, too,
Is part of the role, its pinnacle, our coup de grâce:
Il faut faire place aux autres.
Even so, in my weakness—or is this, too, love?—
I abandon all dignity before her face,
Bright, cavernous, June,
Break decades of studied composure,
Beg our august director for an encore,
Only one, please, Lord, just one more.