Sunday, November 2, 2014

Trompe l'oeil

Detail from Ginevra de' Benci, Leonardo da Vinci


You had me at, Is this real, 
or is it enchantment?

But the source of that question 
is a doubt that gnaws 
at your sinew.

Somewhere inside the emptiness
that consumes every void, there is
a fullness that shrieks 
with necessity.

One can think up
conjure
imagine
whatever one wishes,

And,

In one’s mind
it will be real.

But there are no imaginings 
without witchcraft.
And there are no legends 
without illusion.

And there are no graces
without the unutterable, first.

And there are no set formulas—
Or, are there?

I challenge you.
And judge you.

Yet, here I sit,
in the belly of a thirsty canyon,
staring at a silent and empty sky,

Shedding my Patience of Job,

Exchanging peace for agitation,

Glaring with expectation.

6 comments:

Shadow said...

When enchantment fails that dissatisfaction has a way of manifesting itself...

adriana said...

No, there are no set formulas.
Fortunately or Thank God?

Nevine Sultan said...

Or... maybe we are just eternally dissatisfied because, paradoxically, we won't allow ourselves to be satisfied.

Nevine Sultan said...

How about both? Life would be ever so boring, my dear, if it were nothing but a series of set formulas. :-)

*** said...

Lovely poem. Thank you. No response requested or required, but it's so hard for wisdom seekers to 'not reply'.

Lila...God's play. The great 'unknowable' manifest in infinite life-bits - which makes 'us' part and parcel of that unfathomable force. The human, an aggregate of bits, granted (have evolved to enjoy) the gift of conscious imagining. Some of us feel to play this 'seekers' game - we sense we've played it before - many times, many lives... perhaps. Hence, the deck is stacked! The prize is ours unless we decide to stop playing. Satisfaction stems from knowing the prize exists. The excitement is in the adventure we make of it all. Ha! At least, this is my story... it's a humble one, but there could be no other.

Nevine Sultan said...

Thank you for the energy-evoking thoughts. Your story may be humble, but it is very profound.

I daresay, though, some of us are playing the seekers' game as drawn by the prize. Others are playing the game with the satisfaction being the very process of the game itself. Maybe this is what you mean when you say "The excitement is in the adventure we make of it all"?

Expectation is such a double-edged sword!