"Mysteries" | Reflection by Lucile Bruce

I recommend reading Gilgamesh during Lent. It is full of missing lines. We know Gilgamesh, the ancient Mesopotamian epic, from cracked and crumbling clay tablets written in cuneiform script. The tablets, with their cracks and missing pieces, have yet to yield a complete Gilgamesh. In the version I’m reading, the translator leaves blanks where the tablets are broken. I’ll be reading along, and suddenly, there will be empty space on the page, like this:

·                      · the storm howled,

·                      · will batter you.

·                      · your eyes will shine.

I saw this broken clay pot in Edgerton Park. It reminded me of the cracks and breaks in Gilgamesh. Of stories told and untold. Of histories unknowable. Saying goodbye. Absence. Doors closed. Ourselves. Bodies broken and why. Silences. Treasures buried. Children lost. Flowers in the window. Mysteries.

Three lines quoted above from Tablet IV, in Gilgamesh: With Essays on the Poem, Its Past, and Its Passion by Sophus Helle (Yale University Press, 2021).