disposable world prologue

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
when a new planet swims into his ken
or like stout Cortes, when with eagle eyes
he star'd at the Pacific - and all his men
look'd at each other with a wild surmise
silent, upon a peak in Darien.

In this excerpt of a poem, the wordsmith that Keats undoubtedly is captures his astonishmnet at first reading the works of Homer in Chapman's translation and indeed the feeling one has when confronted with a truly spectacular work of art - brushstrokes so gentle or words so clear, powerful and masterfully arranged that they make something swell within our chests with their truthfulness and beauty. He uses the imposing figure of Cortes, eagle eyed, bold and brave, staring in silent wonder at the expanse of the Pacific to represent the idea of the explorer, the conquistador - a figure which for all its negative conotations still remains firmly a part of the european literary tradition, representing the strenght of human spirit and the potential of human endeavour.

Travel has nowadays lost much of the risk, and with it the grandeur that it carried in the days long gone. The tigers are kept in zoos, the savages tentatively accepted as dinner guests, the boastful stories of conquering the wild, untamed Americas read with a sense of shame, yet these words still resonate within us. The places hold their magic - and perhaps become more than themselves, through the repetition of their names. Like a chant they coil through our collective cultural memory. They are now not merely mountains and rivers, but hallowed by history and song.

The japanese have a word for this - utamakura, a cradle of song, is a place whose genius loci has been immortalized and has become more than just a place. Names of these places have within them the power to make somebody who has never seen them yearn for their air, their sunrise, their winding streets or misty forests, to take them away from the mundane reality of their life for a second and wonder what would it be like to be somewhere else. The names themselves are entrancing and song-like - Venezia, Albion, Guatemala, Ganga. Shanghai 上海, San Salvador, Tanger طنجة. Al-Sahra al-kubra, the greatest desert. The Carribean.

They sing out to travellers, a hum barely perceivabe, like stars at dusk - and, like keen eyed astronomers, there are those who listen.