Rene Daumal poems
Rene Daumal(1908 - 1944 / France)
Skin of Light
- by Rene Daumal 49
The skin of light enveloping this world lacks depth and I can actually see the black night of all thesesimilar bodies beneath the trembling veil and light of myself it is this night that even the mask of the
sun cannot hide from me I am the seer of night the auditor of silence for silence too is dressed in
sonorous skin and each sense has its own night even as I do I am my own night I am the conceiver
of non-being and of all its splendor I am the father of death she is its mother she whom I evoke
from the perfect mirror of night i am the great inside-out man my words are a tunnel punched
through silence I understand all disillusionment I destroy what I become I kill what I love.
Poem
- by Rene Daumal 37
One cannot stay on the summit forever -One has to come down again.
So why bother in the first place? Just this.
What is above knows what is below -
But what is below does not know what is above
One climb, one sees-
One descends and sees no longer
But one has seen!
There is an art of conducting one's self in
The lower regions by the memory of
What one saw higher up.
When one can no longer see,
One does at least still know.