River-dweller: I cannot get to the other bank without your help. Ferryman, tell me of the other bank.
Ferryman: For me, it is the bank to get to, just like this one is when I am over there.
River-dweller: Is it like the banks of my childhood? It is so far I cannot tell form here.
Ferryman: What matter what the country is like if it excites your imagination. What matter what its banks are like. It is your country as long as you think of it, your banks.
River-dweller: I would like to know where this country begins and ends, if its vegetation is related to ours. The shape of its trees and rocks. I would like to know what happens there.
Ferryman: There is life, like here, and life in death. Like here, there is darkness in the light of the Name.
— Jabés, The Book of Questions (trans. R. Waldrop)
Notes for Nothing 