un hombre invernal, imagina harding

Howard wondered about a man who had never seen summer, a winter man, examining the weeds and making this inference—that he was looking at an ossuary. The man would take that as true and base his ideas of the world on that mistake. He would concoct narratives about when those thorny animals picked through the brush and fields, sketch outlandish guesses, publish papers, give talks in opulent rooms to serious men all wearing the same formal suits, draw conclusions, get it all wrong. Howard thought, I do not even know if that is ragweed or Queen Anne's lace.

Paul Harding, Tinkers

salir de si, escribe harding

Rise higher, perhaps to the height where the blackbirds flap. Where have you gone? Oh, there you are, I think. That is you, isn't it, that wisp inching along? Well, rise higher, then, to the belly of the cloud. Where have you gone? Now higher, to where, if you are not careful, you might stub your toe on the mountains of the moon. Where are you? Never mind you; where is your home, your country, your state, your nation? Ah, there it is! And higher now, so that your hair and the lashes of our eyes catch fire from the sparks of solar flares. On which of those bright bodies do you rule your kingdom of dirt, your cart of soap? Very well, that one. I hope you are right—there is little need for a tinker on Mars. Now higher again, past the eight planet, named for the king of the sea. And higher again, past the shadowy ninth, which for now only exists in the dreams of men back on—Well! Where have you gone? Which among those millions of glittering facts is where you belong? Where is it you toil and drum and fall to the ground and thrash in the weeds?

Paul Harding, Tinkers

todo está hecho para perecer, dice harding

Everything is made to perish; the wonder of anything at all is that it hasn't already done so. No, he thought. The wonder of anything is that it was made in the first place. What persists beyond this cataclysm of making and unmaking?

Paul Harding, Tinkers 

you will be dead and buried soon enough, escribe harding

Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? And as you split frost-laced wood with numbs hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God's will and His grace toward you and that that is beautiful, and part of a greater certainly, as your own father always said in his sermons and to you at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough.

Paul Harding, Tinkers