Three rhythms layer [Jabès's The Book of Questions]. On the micro-level, there is the rhythm of the individual line or sentence. A rhythm that, in te verse, comes out of the tension between sentence and line, and in the prose, out of the tension between speech and the more formal syntax of writing[....]
On the structural level, there is the rhythm of prose and verse and, more importantly, of question and answer, question and further question, question and commentary, commentary on commentary and, later, aphorism after aphorism.
Rhythm of midrash, of the rabbinical tradition. Not a dialectic aiming for synthesis, but an open-ended spiralling. A large rhythm, come out of the desert, a rhythm of sand shifting as if with time itself.
Then, there is a third rhythm. It is on the level of the book: a rhythm of text and blank space, of presence and absence.
Rosmarie Waldrop, Lavish Absence