Everything is Illuminated

The Jonathan Froer book is as lateral as any other book I've read. The title 'Everything Is Illuminated' refers to a passage in which all the citizens of Trachimbrod are making love at once. The narrator puts forth a pseudo-scientific "theory," the gist of which is here:From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light.Not light exactly, but a glow that could be confused for light -- a coitalradiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness tothe astronaut's eyes.In about one and a half centuries -- after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs -- the metropolitan cities will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Towns will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples invisible.The glow is born from the sum of thousands of loves: newlyweds and teenagers who spark like lighters out of butane, pairs of men who burn fast and bright, pairs of women who illuminate for hours with soft multiple glows,orgies like rock and flint toys sold at festivals, couples trying unsuccessfully to have children who burn their frustrated image on the continent like the bloom a bright light leaves on the eye after you turnaway from it. Some nights, some places are a little brighter. It's difficult to stare at New York City on Valentine's Day, or Dublin on St. Patrick's. The old walled city of Jerusalem lights up like a candle each of Chanukah's eight nights.Trachimday is the only time all year when the tiny village of Trachimbrod can be seen from space, when enough copulative voltage is generated to sex the Polish-Ukrainian skies electric. We're here, the glow of 1804 will say in one and a half centuries. We're here, and we're alive.

Longing

The longing will simmer and and spew embers for a while..
Till the thin air still hangs in your lungs
Till the chilly wind etches the lines on your face.
Till the scent of the Earth mixed with your beating heart,
Still blows in your mind

Until the wash of work erodes your infinite memory,
And the dust of your unchosen life settles on the conscience
But hark! the sight of a spark in a gray laden sky
Lights another fire in your forgotten bosom
A rememberance of an ally and an ache

And reduces the concrete world around
To a crumbling decay
But you are on a trail, on a higher ground..
And there you must stay
Till the lifetimes turn and take you back again...