The beautiful uninvited guest ...

For Nancy Leach

Reading Dark Back of Time, by Javier Marias, I know I'm being  seduced by long sinuous sentences, pages long paragraphs full of strange digressions and haunting wisdom about the nature of time -

I feel full of a sweet gentle sadness after reading it - I look at the things around me, as this Spanish magician does, imagining them continuing being here, when I have heard an owl call my name - 

There's my magnifying glass, there's my Mont Blanc fountain pen, there's my Harris Tweed jacket, with a five rupee coin in one of the pockets - 

I'm thinking, but not enough, about my own mortality - I want to be ready to greet that beautiful uninvited guest -