Changing what we know

Les paroles changent le connu

le silence aussi

Il n’y a que l’inconnu

qui sauve le connu

(Words change what we know/as silence does/there’s nothing but what we don’t know, saving what we know. My translation)

Anise Koltz, from the collection Le mur du son (The wall of sound)

Words and silence, the one changing the other, and transforming our lives too. As death crosses our way – a loved one, or someone we barely knew, because they hid their truest self from us ‒ life turns into something unknown, perhaps impossible to understand but luminous, a kite we need to fly to feel free again. Thus change comes, illuminating days with wonder, the “inconnu” reversing what we know into what we hope and crave for. It takes courage, to face pain and pass through its breath, let it pierce our thoughts with unexpected sounds, liberating our knowing with bliss and rebirth.