Nietzsche told us that if we could speak with the mosquito, we would become aware of the fact that also they consider themselves to be the center of the universe. Yet, where Nietzsche proposes an image of the mosquito's world, Julija Česnulaitytė offers a conversation between oneself and a cabbage. Neither purely cabbage nor human, the poem reflects on a meeting filled with recognition and unbridgable difference. Both poem and instruction, it even proposes the reader to engage in the same (but never truly the same) experience. The poem is accompanied by visual presentations of an encounter between cabbage and human, the coming-together of the silent language of a leafy green and the always insufficient words of humanity, sharing the same house but somehow missing one another perpetually. I think these words of Julija can, when encountered with true curiosity, crack the everday and give space for a new light, a new thinking to shine.
To offer help to those that might struggle with reading, Julija has recorded the poem, making it more accessible to a wider audience. You can find the recording here.
- Lex
If a cabbage would write about its own perspective of self,
Given we learn how to read the language,
It would neither know its own colour or shape,
Would not feel how heavy it is nor how it smells.
No,
The cabbage would be lost in descriptions
Of surfaces held within.
The leaves that perfectly grew to match one another.
Difficult to imagine,
Just how it can’t imagine
Why I tear up recognising loneliness
Having your own universe.
The only way to deal with misunderstanding
Sadly
Is to take the cabbage apart,
disassemble.
Because accepting something
(In our society)
Is impossible,
Without it being proven.
Each way we cut,
Will give us a different story,
The Total Truth.
1. Cut the head in the middle,
Perpendicular to the root,
And we’ll see endless folds, cohesive in its chaos,
Repetitiveness of the fleshy veins organised in a spiral.
And we’ll say
“How complex you are”.
2. Cut the head down through the root,
We’ll see a stable core,
Reaching its hands to the top,
In constant pursuit to hold its own sanity.
And we’ll say
“Wow, how strong you are!”
Missing the fact
It’s the only way for the cabbage to be.
3. Tear each leave off the core
Look at them individually.
“How simple this head is”,
And put it away.
To the disappointment of the cabbage,
Most of us don’t care
Won’t notice at all,
No matter which way.
Lost in our busy life,
We’ll quickly chop
Without much thought
And throw it in a pot of boiling water.
The tissue will soften and fall apart,
The gentle colours cease,
Becoming almost transparent,
Aroma overpowered by the bouillon cube.
And the humble vegetable
That holds so much
That feeds so many,
Will stay to be unrecognised.
When I meet a cabbage these days,
I try to trust that I won’t understand
How life makes sense in its head.
I will just look at its patterns as a gift
To be felt rather than rationalised,
To be lost in rather than understood.
Something that is, no matter if I witness it or not.
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