VADAVIAN

Up Against It

Copyright 2015 Cerebellum Press

Available by special order

Ingress

It may not surprise you to learn that Vadavian was not an entirely likeable person. He was famous for his arrogance and disdain of people whose interests – or lack thereof – he often deemed petty. As Vadavian himself was known to remark, arrogance is not in and of itself a bad thing, especially when it is justified.

For all of the disappointment he expressed in the general stat of his fellow human, Vadavian was possessed of an incomparable capacity for love. This love, it would seem, was directed at a single, mysterious woman to whom Vadavian occasionally referred in his softer, more private moments. When he spoke of her, he referred to her only as “that northern woman whom I love” before, more often than not, visibly choking back the emotions that seemed to surge up under his craggy surface. Having composed himself after such an uncustomary display of vulnerability and attachment, Vadavian would rise from his Mexican handmade pigskin and juniper lounge chair, stride forth to the fireplace stacked high with blazing logs, and smile, subtly, through tears, into the flames.

I cannot say I knew Vadavian well, but then, of course, no one did. Save, perhaps for this “northern woman”. Nonethless, Vadavian did reveal to me upon our last meeting that he had long desired to compose a book of poems written solely for this woman. Such an undertaking had he never in his life of writing endeavored to pursue. His wish, he remarked, was to give her his love, all of it, through fifty simple poems. Doing so, he believed, would mark a tremendous achievement because it would prove his restraint. I knew immediately what he meant. To give your love to one person in fifty poems written just for them is sublimely understated, and, therefore, tremendously grand.

When we discovered these poems, we recognized immediately their importance. Why? Because Vadavian had never sought to publish them. They were for her. Only her. This mysterious, northern woman whom he loved.     

– Waltherian Sems-Chennowyth

Central Bavaria, 2015