… per lo naturale amore de la propria loquela

— Dante, Convivio

It was a difficult autumn, I reached for Dante
because I needed to walk out, needed to be taken

by the dark, unreliable highway
that links ethics to knowledge. All winter

I found myself running in the spiralling evenings
and streets of Florence – a city haunted

by longing – a road leading inwards
and outwards – shaken

with grief. The Convivio – a love
letter to philosophy, a memoir, a study

in banishment – I’m still trying
to pin down what it is – was composed

in vernacular Florentine – away
from Florence – in exile – somewhere

between 1304 and 1307. Time, like theatre,
is a matter of action taking on

space – a distant dark landscape
turning into the sound of a footstep, an imminent

threat. A city cannot be carried
from one place to another – but words

can be lifted with ease. Anger, too,
is lighter than joy – lighter than pleasure –

is so easy to carry – anger is the most
reliable matter – it won’t

break – does not need to be looked
after. Anger – like language –

will survive exile and earthquake. Florence,
a city haunted by heartache, will take off

in the form of words whispered
around family meals, words tossed before

bedtime, words hovering under skies fascinated
by stars hiding from thunder, words

shaken at midnight before dreams reach
their own visual take on absence

and hunger – it was a difficult spring, a very
difficult summer. I reached for Dante

because I needed to be taken, needed
to breathe. The Convivio, the Banquet, a feast

reconstructing a city out of intimate rumours
and weeping, desolate streets – I think we can call it

a study in language, or longing, or language
as longing – I’m still trying to figure out.

*
Dante dived into Aristotle – il mio maestro –
in Latin – years before Aristotle’s work

was discovered in Greek. Aristotle –
who wrote on nearly every subject

imaginable – according to the dual-language
Critical Edition I’m trying

to read to the sound of thunder wrestling
with speed all the way on the bus

towards King’s Cross. Aristotle hovers
over Dante’s Florence like the God

of earthly knowledge – words
will lead you towards more

knowledge, words will move you
towards the good. Three quarters

of Aristotle’s works – on the Soul, on Justice,
on Philosophy – among others –

were lost. Dante’s Convivio –
a banquet designed to serve fifteen meals

of poetry and prose in everyday language –
was never completed – a project

on language that like language, breaks
into every subject imaginable –

astronomy, logic, equality, love, maths,
rhetoric, Latin, hunger, hypocrisy, and of course –

heartbreak. Florence, a city haunted
by soaring ambition and moral

corruption – Florence – a city fractured
by a hundred towers testing out

storms – Florence – a city disfigured
by a singular, unbearable

loss – will hold on to language and take flight
like a hawk circling the point of true

source – a matter of hunger – a sort
of absence – words

will take on hunger and absence, breathe
them into a force. It was a difficult

summer, I held on to Dante like to a critical
thought. That day on the bus, the storm

took over the city like a desperate
flight. A study in fear. There was something

I found heartbreaking, even though
I knew it was not meant to be –

the Convivio is written out of natural love
for my own language

– per lo naturale amore de la propria loquela –

Everything you learned, you first learned
with your first words – everything – even

heartbreak, even silence, even
another language.

*
All human beings by nature desire
to know – the first book of the Convivio

begins – a quote from Aristotle – a prayer
for ethics to pull itself together, to seek

knowledge with words. It’s wanting to know
that makes us matter – the closed, difficult

character in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia
will say on stage before opening her book, leaving

towards her notes. I remember the light going off
at the theatre space – I was still new

in London – London was still a city of insecure
words – the rain took hold of the streets

like an irregular prayer – each house, a study
in rain, each word, a sigh

made of rain. Each letter, each
thunder – a summer of rain. I was trying

to find my father but he wouldn’t
respond. The city took me

without notice – an open, indifferent
landscape – the most difficult and most

welcoming, I was trying to learn
how it worked. That summer, I was no longer

an outsider but an official
outsider – a foreigner

in a city haunted by words. It’s wanting to know
that makes us matter. I remember

carrying these words like a sigh
or a prayer, perhaps a way of coping

with something – back then
I didn’t want to believe

in loss – it’s wanting to know
that makes us matter – it’s wanting to know –

*
A city cannot be carried from one place
to another, but thoughts can be lost

and recovered in seconds – the weight
of a sound flowing into a chamber, a wave

forming into a word. Wittgenstein
wrote the Philosophical Investigations

in German – away from the German
language – in Cambridge, England – away

from what happened between 1929
and 1947 – a project on language

written to the constant new soundscape
of foreign words – a way of pushing

towards some order, a wave flowing into
another, perhaps a desire for linear thought –

After several unsuccessful attempts
to weld my results together into such a whole,

I realised that I should never succeed.
What never succeeded, collapsed

into a wild, beautiful landscape –
a work I will always misread for a long

sequence of poems, a book
published only after his death – something

to do with the way language breaks
and behaves – a city receding

and growing – something to do
with the way it will not be contained, not even

in chapters. Almost
like poems. It was during the pandemic

that I discovered that the cemetery
I used to cross on my running route

is where some sort of pilgrimage
seemed to take place. Visitors, maybe

students, coming to see –
I wasn’t sure

what. I remember thinking – truly, I am not
religious. What was to be found

in this place apart from
stone? Language

was not part of that world, only silence
and a name hovering above the assurance

of numbers – 1889–1951 – and a few
meters away – the analytic

philosopher and Wittgenstein’s translator –
Elizabeth Anscombe – and more

numbers, aiming to shelter from something, perhaps
absence – 1919–2001

*
A city cannot stand still or be left
in the darkness. The long spiralling streets

of the night will always be reconstructed
at dawn, the deep field

of a skyline, the rhythm
of loss. The Vernacular is unstable

and corruptible – Dante will grant
the most beautiful line of defence

for a word crashing into
another – carrying the wound

of an unsettled thought. A world
that is breaking apart requires

a language – a landscape
for rupture. The small ship

carrying the night before darkness
could not handle the absence of shores. A city

cannot be carried in silence – even
Florence, even a place radiating

with heartbreak, even a street hollowed
by a singular, unbearable

loss. The gift of language
is a beautiful gesture, but only

if practiced – for nothing is useful
beyond the amount it is used. Centuries

later, in another attempt against
the structure of chapters, Wittgenstein

will note, The meaning of a word
is its use in a language. A prayer

I’ll keep carrying with me like a sigh
or an oath. A city cannot be protected

by rumours or letters, it will not be restored
in the realm of a book – even

Florence, even a city haunted
by words. In Dante’s

banquet – philosophy is the food
that is served in everyday speech – the bread

that is made of coarse grain
rather than wheat.

When I talk about language – Wittgenstein
will note – I must speak

of the language of the every day.
So is this language too coarse,

too material, for what we want to say?
A city will not be erased

by the rupture of language. There is no landscape
ruptured enough to lose hold

of a thought. It was a difficult
autumn – words

disappeared and appeared
like great cities born

out of smoke. That winter, I held on to
Dante – il mio maestro –

held on to
and couldn’t let go –

I, in trying to console myself, found
not only the remedy of my tears but words

of authors, fields of knowledge,
and books.

*
Anger is the most reliable matter – it won’t
break – does not need to be looked

after. There’s a country – a governing
body – that not only cuts your heart out of your cold, shivering

frame, but does so using your own accent
and language, your own childhood

landscape, your own
tongue. Oh, let me tell you about anger –

... and the despicable, wicked men
of Italy, who debase this precious vernacular.

*
A city will not be protected
by language, but words will keep flooding

the emptied houses, the wide, weeping
landscapes, the nights soaring over the absence

of children running towards a field. Dante
will go back to Florence in 1308 – the year

he would learn he’d been banished
for life. Rejoice, Firenze –

… for over sea and land and throughout hell
your name outspreads!

Every time I stumble into
this sentence – in the beginning

of Inferno 26 – something
in me breaks. Anger is the most reliable

matter – and yet, here, it will not stand up
to despair. It was a difficult

autumn. There was something
I learned: it is much easier to traverse

the long hours of night if only one country
pulls your heart out of your body and holds

it like prey, tears its small
membranes apart. Much more difficult

to handle two countries losing their –
I’d like to say way or mind, but in fact –

heart.
That autumn, people

around me – artists, poets – found joy
in the death of others – those who lived

miles away from the warm-metal hearts
of their screens. It was a difficult

autumn. Rejoice, Firenze –
for over sea and land you beat your wings!

*
A city will not be carried in silence. Language
will find its way out of the wreckage

of letters, the absence of courage, the limits
of words to bring

any relief. Time, like theatre, is a matter of distance
turning to action – an unruly prayer

moving, soaring over
the ruins of a field. In Stoppard’s Arcadia –

the young, fearless heroine
mourns for the loss of knowledge –

All the lost plays of the Athenians… Aristotle’s
own library… How can we sleep for grief?

How I wish I had such trust in knowledge
as I have in grief. How I wish

I could sleep. How I wish I could traverse
the cities constructed around the idea of knowledge

without fear. It was a difficult
autumn. The most difficult year. I reached for Dante

because I needed to breathe, needed to be taken
by the dark soaring highway

that links ethics to practice, language
to deeds. All winter

I found myself running in the spiralling evenings
and streets of Florence – a city haunted

by longing, a road leading inwards and outwards,
shaken with grief.