Sounding my last squawk!
Now, quite recently finding myself on the point of sounding my last squawk! I thought of searching for the key to the ancient feast, where I might possibly recover my appetite.
I was eighteen when I first read these lines by Arthur Rimbaud, from a poem he wrote at the same age. They stayed with me, returning at certain axial moments when I needed to recover an appetite.
Some forty years later, in my sixties, I took early retirement from a job I no longer loved. What once thrilled me had become a deadening bore. Listlessness and lethargy ruled. And so, once more, I returned to that line.
What is the feast Rimbaud spoke of? I found a suggestion in a book written half a century later by Johan Huizinga:
The things that can make life enjoyable remain the same. They are, now as before, reading, music, fine arts, travel, the enjoyment of nature, sports, fashion, social vanity (knightly orders, honorary offices), and the intoxication of the senses.
Is this the feast Rimbaud talks of? It certainly appeals to me. If this is my last squawk, or even my second-last (I intend to live to at least ninety), then Johan’s list is a fine starting point, and Arthur’s search one worth pursuing.
This site is a record of that search: for the feast, the appetite, and perhaps even the keys.