[Crítica] “Borrowed time”: The weariness before the divine silence

This volume by the Belgian poet Germain Droogenbroodt is an immersion in a kind of aesthetic cartography in which the experience passes freely under the shade of a single nameless tree, or with a unique and sacred patronymic, where spirituality is discovered intimate and very personal. .

By Thomas Washes

Posted on 31.7.2022

ANDn these contemplative verses, from the atavistic topic of the wandering traveler, as in the sublime friendship between man and the vital emulsion of places full of traditions and overflowing with voids open to the individual and authentic experience of the subject, free of all time and space.

Perhaps, as if recalling the novelty of the mystical, intoxicated, existentialist and pre-romantic lyrics of the masterful Chinese poet of the 7th century, Li Po, Germain Droogenbroodt unifies, with unprecedented freshness, the cardinal theological, ontological and philosophical dimensions of East and West separated by the abyss of the “name of God”; that is, the transcendental and eternal matter of the identity of Divinity in the fragile human consciousness.

Which is well reflected in these lines of the poem “Goddess of the night”, in which Germain, drenched in a mysterious existential old age, as if by boredom before the divine silence against which humans of all cultures have elevated thought and speculation, communicates a cosmopolitan universality, and cosmic in general, as a vital search and invocation of the true presence of the sacred; of the true radiance and direct sight and hearing of the truth, beyond doubt and error:

what moon
brings us a flash of light?

what sun
-not threatening
wave to us?

where is the seer, the prophet,
that gives, like bread, the truth,
that is pure, clear and profound at the same time?

the mystery of existence

Germain Droogenbroodt summons us to go out in search of the transcendental experience, evidently, beyond any specific time and place; it is the invitation to open the book of the mystery of existence, of the path to the satisfaction of the insatiable thirst for a superabundant truth, which is not limited to another frontier than that of the nature of the human spirit in mystical ecstasy, or in the “witness of the prophet”:

everything merged
things
the men
the gods
the beginning and the end
eternal and whole
-one.

In this way, Droogenbroodt gives proof of his transcendental impetus, uniting, as in the voice of a Neoplatonist of the third century after Christ, Roman, Greek or Hindu polytheism, with the monism of Parmenides, perhaps, in the philosophical wisdom and religious of the master Ammonius of Saccas or of Plotinus himself.

borrowed time by Germain Droogenbroodt it is an immersion in a kind of «cultural asceticism», an «undressing» of dogmas; there where the experience flows freely under the shade of a single nameless tree, or with a unique and sacred name, there where spirituality is discovered intimate, transcending each particular language from the cultural terms and notions that allow human beings to express in social terms the ineffable, as a way, perhaps, to point out the path, the same one that this world-renowned poet, with the simplicity and joy of a master of the trade, comes to teach.

It is the path that leads to the places of human life hidden in its own spirit, or perhaps further away, a reality intermingled with the stars, the Tao, Buddhism and the wisdom of the Yahwist prophets, in an aesthetic of the exaltation of contemplation beyond the apparent contradictions, and in the praise of religious, philosophical and poetic virtue, as a kind of practical path to knowledge and liberation:

DO NOT FOLLOW THE STARS AT NIGHT
but upstream the darkness
terrestrial and palpable

don’t save alms
share the nomads of the night
bread and wine

Throw roses at dawn.

borrowed time It is an essential reading for those who seek, yesterday and today, thirsty for the present of all times and places.

To acquire a paper copy of this work, you can request it at the next link.

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Thomas Washes (James, 1994). Chilean poet, mainly of the narrative style. He is a screenwriter and founder of the film script production company Filocalia, specializing in the epic genre and animated content for teenagers. Graduated as Audiovisual Director from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Essayist of cinematographic aesthetics, in particular, of the epic genre today.

Borrowed Time by Germain Droogenbroodt (Independently Poetry, 2022)

Thomas Washes

Outstanding image: Independently Poetry.

[Crítica] “Borrowed time”: The weariness before the divine silence – Cinema and Literature