You don’t understand anything about me: you don’t understand what I say, what I mean, what I do; you are the blind man, I am the deaf man: together, we are cut off from one another completely. And now this is the gentle time, the soft time, the time like a soft stream brushing gently past lazy fingers sliding into it. THIS IS THE IRON CIRCLE: WE ARE BLIND. Now you have a noose about your neck: this place is so lonely. What are these rushing mobs, rushing here, rushing there, pressing, trampling children and the old, all concentrated together and all wild with green madness? I don’t know you, I don’t know you at all. You are the one whose water lies deep underground, welling forth only at the eyes; your eyes are deep wells, leading to underground caverns with blind fish and blind lizards. O the waters of your eyes constantly move, constantly shift; they show forth your living life, your life doing nothing but being alive. You are the massive sharp teeth; you are made of massive heavy stone: your legs are stone, your arms are stone; like a giant carved idol, you stand in the lonely wilderness hidden by undergrowth, and your legs are each a tall tree trunk reaching on upward in great power. Raze the temple to the ground; leave nothing left; scatter the waste of the temple to the ends of the earth upon the four winds; leave no piece behind bigger than a thimble. This python crawls into the anus and becomes the man; yes, this python crawls into the anus completely, invades the body, overtakes the body, and becomes the man.