Mute Objects of Expression (7 page)

The bud of a vigorous stalk
splits into carnation

 

14

 

O rent into Œ
O! Bud of vigorous stalk
rent into OEILLET!
Plant, with immobile kneecaps
ELLE, she, O youthful vigor
L of the symmetrical apostrophes
O the supple pointed olive
unfolding into Œ, I, double-L, E, T
Little tongues shredded
By the violence of their talk
Damp satin raw satin

 

etc.

(My carnation shouldn't amount to much; one must be able to hold it between two fingers.)

 

15

 

Among the ecstasies, including lessons, to be drawn from a contemplation of carnations, there are several varieties, and I'd like, on a progressive scale of pleasure, to begin with the least spectacular,
the most down to earth and perhaps most solid, those that emerge from the mind at the moment the shoot itself emerges from the earth . . .

At first this plant hardly differs from ragweed. It clings to the soil, which looks at that spot both hard-packed and as sensitive as a gum being pierced by fangs. If you try to extract the little wisp, success won't come easily, for you soon notice that beneath it there's a sort of long horizontal root underlining the surface, a long and very tenacious will to resist, relatively quite considerable. We find ourselves dealing with a very resistant sort of thread that throws the extractor off balance, forcing him to alter the thrust of his effort. It is something very much like the sentence through which I'm trying “at this very moment” to express it, something that unfolds less than it tears away, that grips the soil with a thousand adventitious radicles – and is likely to break off (under my effort) before I have managed to extract the principle. Aware of this danger I risk it viciously, shamelessly, repeatedly.

Enough of that, right? Let's drop the root of our carnation.

– We will drop it, fine, but restored to a more tranquil state of mind, and before letting our thoughts rise towards the stem – settling down on the grass, for instance, not far away, and observing without touching it again – we'll nonetheless ponder the reasons for this form it has taken: why a thread rather than a tap root or simple subterranean branching like ordinary roots?

Indeed we shouldn't give way to the temptation of believing that it is simply to plague myself that I have just described this carnation behavior.

But perhaps it is possible to detect in vegetal behavior a will to bind up the earth, to be its religion, its religious – and consequently its masters.

But let's return to the form of the roots. Why a thread rather than a tap root or a branching like ordinary roots?

Two reasons might have existed behind this choice, either of them valid depending on whether you look at it as an aerial root or rather as a rampant stem.

Perhaps if it is taken as an atrophied shrub, a weary, limp shrub without enough faith to raise itself vertically off the ground, then perhaps some millennial experience taught it the value of reserving its altitude for the flower.

Or is it perhaps that this plant must cover a vast terrain in search of scarce principles suited to the particular urgency that culminates in its flower?

The sheer length of these paragraphs devoted purely to the root of my subject must correspond to an analogous concern . . . but here we've gone the limit.

Let's come out of the ground at this chosen place . . .

So there we've found the tone, upon reaching
indifference.

 

MIMOSA

FONTENELLE

 

 

Here, against a backdrop of azure sky, like a character in the Italian
commedia
, with a pinch of absurd histrionics, powdered as a Pierrot in his costume of yellow polka dots – mimosa.

But it's not a lunar shrub: rather a solar one, multisolar . . .

A character of naive vainglory, easily discouraged.

Anything but smooth, each seed, made up of silky hairs, is a heavenly body if you will, infinitely starred.

The leaves seem like great feathers, very light and yet bowed under their own weight; therefore more touching than other palms, and for the same reason very distinguished as well. Yet nowadays there's something vulgar about the idea of the mimosa; it's a flower that has recently been vulgarized.

. . . Just as in tamarisk there is
tamis,
or sieve, in mimosa there is
mima,
mimed.

I never choose the easiest subjects; that's why I choose the mimosa. And since it's a very difficult subject, I must open a notebook.

First of all, I have to say that the mimosa doesn't inspire me in the least. It's simply that I have some idea about it deep inside that I must bring out because I want to take advantage of it. Why is it that the mimosa fails to inspire me, while it was one of my childhood infatuations, one of my predilections? Much more than any other flower, it would arouse my emotions. Alone among them, they enthralled me. I believe it might have been through the mimosa that my sensuality was awakened, that it awoke to the sun of mimosas. I floated in ecstasy on the potent billows of its scent. So that even now each time mimosa appears within me, near me, it reminds me of all that, and then instantly fades.

So I must thank the mimosa. And since I write, it would be unthinkable for me not to have a piece of writing about mimosas.

But the truth is that the more I circle around this shrub, the more I seem to have chosen a difficult subject. That's because I hold it in very high regard, wouldn't want to treat it offhandedly (particularly given its extreme sensitivity). I want to approach it only with great delicacy...

. . . This entire preamble, which could be pursued further still, should be called “Mimosa and I.” But it is to the mimosa itself – sweet illusion! – that we should turn now; to the mimosa without me, if you will . . .

Rather than a flower, we should say a branch, a bough, perhaps even a feather of mimosa.

No frond is more like a feather, a young feather, what lies between down and feather.

Sessile, directly adhering to its branches, countless little balls, golden pompons, powder puffs of chick down.

Mimosa's minute golden pullets, we might say, gallinaceous seeds, the mimosa's chicks as seen from two kilometers away.

The hypersensitive palmery-plumery and its chicks two kilometers away.

All this, seen through field glasses, scents the air.

Perhaps what makes my work so difficult is that the name of the mimosa is already perfect. Knowing both the shrub and the name of mimosa makes it more difficult to find a better way to define the thing than the name itself.

It seems as though it has been perfectly
applied
to it, that this thing has already been pinned down . . .

Why no, the very idea! And then, is it really so much a question of defining it?

Isn't it much more urgent to emphasize, for instance, the mimosa's proud but also gentle, caressing, affectionate, sensitive side? It shows
solicitude
in its gestures and its breath. Both alike are effusions, in the sense that the
Littré
gives: communication of intimate feelings and thoughts.

And
deference:
condescension mingled with consideration and motivated by respect.

Such is the sensitive greeting of its frond. Thereby hoping, perhaps, to have its vainglory excused.

A thicket of gray feathers on the rumps of ostriches. Golden chicks hiding there (poorly hidden) but with no air of subterfuge.