Farther

Without reference of horizon farther makes navigation by usual instruments, and heroes, impossible. We recognize the image on its cover as sea; we recognize its language as English. Recognition ends there. We are in a funnel descent -- a downward circular motion that washes section titles from one another until only the letter O remains. Words also turn into and fall from each other: always compass / encompassing passing / collapsing / as if beauty were complete / not. We fall into the sea of Thackrey's sleight of ear -- a straight line of words becomes a spiral, a whole book a circling back. We enter the letter O -- lens opening, contraction -- the slip space between letters, words, lines, the said, the implied echo. This is how she turns us through the open portal of order's disorder, a history that begins with sundering and ends with shattering -- This is how she collapses the compass so that known coordinates disappear, making possible this paean to as if beauty that is infinitely farther.