"En tout ce qui est repete, quelque chose s'épuise et quelque chose murit. Une sorte de plus profond equilibre est obscurément cherche et partiellement trouve" H.M.
A factory in Southeast Asia -- from viscous plasticene mix, dyes and natural fibered twine -- produces strings of regular brown beads in a sequence of unknown importance. Packed in gross and shipped in muddy alleys by indifferent immigrant laborers dodging time for a smoke, any break. Shipped, unpacked, bought, sold, commerced all, they find a meaning in nervous pious fingers wearing prayer down to the cotton thread. Hail Mary full of grace. It is not the empty blessing of a priest on payroll, it is not transmutation of blind belief, it is the saying so over and over and over that callouses fingers, forges valleys in the mind to hold cataracts of faith. There is a man who sweeps up after us, who scrubs our toilets and lines our cans. Each action is a redundancy, each day a repetition and he will die on his feet doing it or retire useless. Each flourish of the broom approaches a perfect dancing arc. Each bag pulled, replaced and tied -- a sequence beautiful in intent -- a scribe of transcendental curves in space and time --epicycloid, lissajous, catenary, clilies, isochone, cornu spiral, syntractex -- these could be his rosary as each action moves and dances closer and closer to meaning closer and closer to the valley of faith.
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