22 OCTOBER 1988, Page 34

Atavism

La vrai terre natale est celle cni on a eu sa premiere emotion forte (Remy de Gourmont)

A coliseum has it, near enough, though who's to say what actually occurred: a presence unmistakable, if rough, a void stamped in the image of a word.

Our bodies know it lying half-awake, half-sleeping, with their whereabouts still blurred: the sudden fragment fished up from a lake, a universe we've briefly disinterred.

A house-scent, say, some object set apart, the incidental gesture or a word — and, years later, in the ringed valleys of the heart, reverberations are heard.

A local and yet universal stock, a heritage perennially deferred like minerals at the heart of uncut rock, — still buried where the first big shift occurred.

Mark Hutchinson