1 post tagged “john berger”

I've just finished re-reading an exceptional book of the above title by the polymath John Berger. It’s hard to categorise the book as it’s a combination of prose, poetry, love letters, writings on painters etc. There's a section at the end of the book that I thought was worth sharing, I guess I can indulge myself now that I'm in this business, that professionally I have been thinking about what it means to be 'in love', (personally) I have a feeling that poetry (even in this prose form) may offer some insight and this is one of my favourite hints

“What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your left ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.”