Pliny

Winter expeditions, through the cold of absence (in which illusions might interpose), distance (to ensnare us right at home). Following what they could, auguria ex avibus, to the heat of you, those first natural scientists. Us first ones, boiled clean in desire– readied in the ark over fire and water to rebuild the gates of our senses. To open sense. And be made therein, get fucked by what thighs (our best tools) can explain only in snatches: casting long stretches of ourselves to see what breeches over the horizon. Pherecydes was the first to disregard ‘the fetters of verse, and to write in desultory language.’ Discursive language. But history is different. Cadmus was the first historian.Who set the snake soldiers against each other, and glimpsed what was beyond them. That’s what Pliny was just telling me, and he said all we know about death is that we return to the state from before we were born. So much for that. All we have is what’s left. Snatches of things, things, clues, birds, the feeling signals. Gates come to their senses opening by themselves.