“Often the object of a desire, when desire is transformed into hope, becomes more real than reality itself.”
—Umberto Eco, The Book of Legendary Lands
A poet's soul is written down in words and expressed through the soul of his poetry. A sigh becomes the poetic essence of his soul, a recognition of this delicate and evanescent beauty that is universal, paradoxically transient and eternal at the same time. A breath, the pearlescent powder on a butterfly's wing, an evening breeze, colours of the world at dusk, a mirage on sand, a thought, a melody, a poem lasting for as long as it is sung silently, soundlessly. The efflorescence of fallen petals on a floating piano in slumber of emptiness, nonchalantly awaiting reveille from repose.
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A poet's soul can always foresee the aching sadness that comes with/after beauty－something that "is," and not "caused"－the featherlight imprint of a butterfly's kiss upon one's heart that weighs heavier than the blood of a velvety scarlet rose...
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This is the moon's phosphorescence... As exquisite and mysterious as the poetry of the moon, of the stirring illusion of crazing inside jade.
I shall quote from one of the poems dearest to my heart－“Invitation to the Harp” by Rafael Alberti (translated by Mark Strand):
Go even farther away than that.
Where the moon is torn between a poplar leaf and a passionate book,
where there are midnight frosts that candelabra conceal
and where death shivers in the unsteady sleep of the candles,
where a puppet in mourning dies over a tuberose,
where a voice from oblivion stirs the sleeping water of pianos.
Go always farther away, farther away.
Go where floors retain the echoes and shadows of footsteps,
where moths watch over the silence of neckties,
where a hundred years is a harp that has been forgotten.
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| film x-ray radiograph of roses, by bionerd (via flickr) “Today in my heart a vague trembling of stars and all roses are as white as my pain.” ―Federico García Lorca, from “Canción Otoñal” (Autumn Song) |
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| Mughal gem set gold mounted jade mirror, Northern India, 18th century. |
We hardly ever see the moon any more
so no wonder
it’s so beautiful when we look up suddenly
and there it is gliding broken-faced over the bridges
brilliantly coursing, soft, and a cool wind fans
your hair over your forehead and your memories
of Red Grooms’ locomotive landscape
I want some bourbon/you want some oranges/I love the leather
jacket Norman gave me
and the corduroy coat David
gave you, it is more mysterious than spring, the El Greco
heavens breaking open and then reassembling like lions
in a vast tragic veldt
that is far from our small selves and our temporally united
passions in the cathedral of Januaries
everything is too comprehensible
these are my delicate and caressing poems
I suppose there will be more of those others to come, as in the past
so many!
but for now the moon is revealing itself like a pearl
to my equally naked heart
～Avenu A, by Frank O’Hara
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One's heart can be a riddle to oneself. Is it possible, could it be an intimation of not loving one's own soul would there be a soulmate out there with whom one was not in love?
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“La noche habla suspiros de hojas.
En el silencio,
una sombra camina la huella de mi susurro.”
"Walk my sigh.
I knew there was none reflected in each step."
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