light

 

 

 

 

on the hill

 

 

 

 

 

 

foggy-frozen

 

 

 

 

Zürich, 2014...

 

 

 

thin white layer..

 

 

 

 

from the train

 

 

 

 morning, first light

December, 21

 

from the train

 

 

 

"It is like the dream of a world that is visible before

it takes shape as a reality.[…] It is difficult to convey

the impression made by walking among these mysterious

scenes which spatially, it is true, are large and powerful,

and in which the human being looks like a tiny piece

of dead coal."

 

"Suddenly a steep white wall rises in front of me;

it seems to be quite close, but it is really a shallow

rise some distance away. There a black hill just out

of the snow, hill I have never noticed before,

but then I see that it is only a small stone. There is

a steep rise, but when I come to it my skis pass over

level ground. Everything is distorted and dislocated

in the swimming light, which affords the eye

no fixed point by which to make judgement.

[…] beyond is an infinite blackness in which

everything is swallowed up."

 

—Christiane Ritter, A Woman in the Polar Night [1938]

  

 

morning