The Rings of Saturn

People speak of many things but, arguably, rarely about their innermost feelings of desire and longing. Desire, after all, is an intimate thing, a feeling often nurtured in privacy and secret fantasy. It's natural language is silence or, at best, through glance and gesture. And yet it remains one of the last taboos, possibly more so than eroticism, for desire usually includes an element of loss. For to achieve the object of desire is also to lose the fire that was part of the original, seductive craving between two people. But it is almost always there in the peripheral vision of our everyday lives - stirring us to feel as we plug away mechanically at the computer; making our way through the throngs of rush hour subway traffic; or even stopping to eat a sandwich before the next important appointment.