Truth-and-Darkness                                                            Page 41

The "invisible wand" is not a magic wand and in the cry "Eli, Eli" the "magic"

god dies. This death is the "denial of the denial of death." A Buddhist reading

of "Eli, Eli" has parallels with a deconstructive interpretation of the poem. The

reader is left in an empty space in which it is possible to discern an invitation to

reflect on what Mark Taylor calls "yea to nay". In this space the death of the

Christ-figure is the death of the transcendent God and of the transcendent self.

It is the end of a certain kind of history:

While history "begins" with the incapacity or reluctance to say "Yea to

Nay", it "ends with the ability and willingness to say "Amen - So be it".

Put differently the Yes that ends history is the denial of the denial of

death....When it is realised that only one strong enough to die can live

it becomes possible to embrace death as a grace....From the perspective

of the end of history, the "final" plot seems to be "that there is no

plot".⁴⁴

The poem ends in a blank, open space where there is "no plot", "no river". This

space is like that left by death itself.

But in the space there are all kinds of traces, presences, memories. These

characterise the "Space Between"(C.P.p.314):

Space between lip and lip

and space between

living and long-dead flesh

can sometimes seem the same.

We strive across, we strain

to those who breathe the air,

to those in memory;

but Here is Never There.

Frail bridges cross from eye

to eye, from flesh to flesh,

from word to word; the net

is gapped at every mesh,

and this each human knows:

however close our touch

or intimate our speech,

silences, spaces reach

most deep, and will not close.

 ⁴⁴ Taylor, Erring, pp. 72-73