.

three antique sleigh bells, brass
with green-braided leather straps,
handcrafted in Pakistan
for the American Amish,
each with a different size,
weight and note,
but mainly, the trilogy
of their cold-round ring

I bought three brass bells today
which brought me inclination,
a kind of leaping-in-place (saut sur place)
for an exchange of will,
as if to hear something outside of me
re-sound within,
to yearn for humourous obscurity
in the perpetual filling-up
of each successive event,
filling up with not only (my) misfortune
but also with all the splendour-and-brightness
that subsequently dries it up again,
as if to flip the moment
on its most contracted point
and slice it cleanly through-and-through,
to become worthy of the next mobile instant
that incessantly hurls itself at me,
is what I thought
while ringing the weight
of time-and-age contained
within those three brass bells

"Everything was in order with the events
of my life before I made them mine;
to live them is to find myself tempted
to become their equal, as if they had
to get from me only that which they have
that is best and most perfect."
(Gilles Deleuze, 1990)