THE FOUR IN THE NIGHT
THE FOUR IN THE NIGHT
ACT I – TIME & ANGUISH
Chant of PROUST
Time is not a line, but a vast sea that hides its waves beneath the blanket of sleeping memory,
a sea that suddenly rises at the breath of a perfume, the touch of warm porcelain, the taste of a pastry,
and when the wave comes, it does not bring foam, but entire streets, salons, faces, forgotten lovers and reborn cities,
as if a simple grain of sugar had summoned from the void an orchestra hidden inside me.
Chant of KAFKA
Time is an immense building where all corridors repeat themselves,
and every door opens only onto another door, every stair descends into another stair,
and man wanders among walls inscribed with chalk signs he cannot decipher.
Chant of JOYCE
A single day, a June 16th, can bear upon its shoulders the entire mythology of the world,
can transform the ordinary walk to the market into a triumphant march,
can raise a kiss into a solar myth, a drunken night into an odyssey, a conversation into an ancient poem.
Chant of BECKETT
Time is a rusted circle creaking in the dark, spinning always upon the same axis,
a broken wheel that leads nowhere, yet refuses to stop turning.
Days fall one upon another, identical, until you no longer know where beginning ends or ending begins.
Intermediate Chorus
Time appears as perfume, as tribunal, as spectacle, as broken wheel,
yet remains the same invisible monster, the same sea never showing its shore.
ACT II – LANGUAGE & MYTH
Chant of PROUST
Language is not a hurried ladder, but a stained glass window whose lead holds together the colors of memory,
and through the glass of the long sentence enters the light of an old afternoon, shining on the face of a porcelain cup,
and as the sentence arches like a Gothic vault, I feel from the bones of syntax a quiet choir rise,
singing the names of small things I have loved, placing them gently upon the altar of a page.
Chant of KAFKA
Language is not a sword cutting fog, but a common-use corridor where words queue obediently,
and impersonal verbs, these clerks of grammar, take your measure silently and fit you with chains,
with the cold courtesy of those who never err, for they never say 'I' nor 'you,' only 'it is decided.'
Chant of JOYCE
Language is a street orchestra that conjures fanfares from nothing,
a carnival of timbres and rhythms where the sentence changes costume at every corner,
mixing Latin with whispers of the pub, prayer with curse, dictionary with merry graffiti,
until the text becomes a living city, and the city an apocryphal Bible scribbled on napkins.
Chant of BECKETT
Language is a fish cleaned down to the spine, I hold it in my palm and only the skeleton remains,
and when I place it on the skillet, it does not sizzle, only silence makes small bubbles,
as if silence itself were boiling slowly in the pan of time.
ACT III – ETHICS & MESSAGE
Chant of PROUST
My ethics do not feed on cries nor on the law of stone, but on the slowness with which I touch memory,
and on the way, like a restorer of frescoes, I bend over a shadow and gently brush away the dust,
until its color, hidden by years, reappears alive and turns back to look me in the eye.
Chant of KAFKA
My ethics do not promise salvation, but moving forward, even when forward is nowhere,
to step into the endless corridor and not cease, even if doors remain closed and walls do not reply.
Chant of JOYCE
My ethics are to raise daily life to the rank of epic, to make of a single day a complete odyssey,
to crown banal gestures with metaphors, to wrap them in orchestra and call them to the stage.
Chant of BECKETT
My ethics are not reconciliation, not hope, not celebration,
but the mere perseverance of one who breathes into emptiness and continues to walk even without a road.
Hymn of Remaining
Man remains.
He breathes.
He endures.
Not through victory, but through presence.
Not through meaning, but through the mere fact of still being here.
Not through triumph, but through resistance.
Copyright © Dan Enache | Year Posted 2025
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