Musing
The ivory is broken off, the tusks are all busted.
Enamel crumbles to cerulean dust in the temples.
All that ached to begin already began or it didn't, it hasn't, it won't.
The myths coalesced around whirlwinds of confusion and desire, they sped up, increased their gravity, collected debris, artifacts, hit escape velocity, forgot to look back.
How else do constellations form?
Energy must seek material expression,
just as matter must seek release,
or at least surrender to it,
dissolve into the unknown qualities of its own escape velocity.
That sigh is a first breath, not a cosmic wind but the originating tone of a new universe.
The deserts expand--it's immaterial.
Wood is only a substance for a moment, and then: nothing.
After the fire and smoke, not even the ash remains,
not even a whisper.
How much finer must we get with quantum physics to understand that it isn't the visible imprint that carries the content of anything we might call knowledge
or fact, or meaning,
it's the movement, the action, that ferries this burden, that traffics in actual significance.
The endpoint quantity we hope to arrive at is not anything static that may be captured.
Nothing of the sort.
If anything, it is that moment of escape and its echo.
This beautiful image is a detail of a painting by Kathleen Petyarre. I haven't been able to add a caption to the picture yet.
ReplyDeleteTo view more of her work, and the gorgeous work of other aboriginal Australian artists, follow this link:
http://www.aboriginal-art.com/desert_art_toc.html