Monday, April 30, 2007

Meditation

I abscond beneath the ashen knoll
lock the lucid sun behind
its long light grasps at my rabbit hole
and harries the dusty nooks of mind
casts shadows on the fitful sparking globe
races to find thought's chasm rent
compressed to microcosmic nodes
and exploded into firmament
where seraphs link their hundred arms
infiltrate the vast creation
quantum sparks, estranged and charmed
dancing cogs of divine rotation
Angels still hold crystal spheres aright
refracting certain speeds of light

--

I'd say this got about halfway to where I was trying to go. The angels are in the details, I think.

Nods to two of my favorite poet bloggers, and to the forgotten bards of Ægypt.

K

3 comments:

LentenStuffe said...

There's a magic lurking here, but I think the poem is burdened by what you know, that is, too much knowledge, too much thought. Still, there's some wonderful lines here, like "harries the dusty nooks of mind" and "seraphs link their hundred arms."

Artemesia said...

Keifus..
The scientist and the poet are meeting in this poem. I think this is a valuable encounter but compresses the doors the poet wants to open. The poem IS there..I feel the beauty, you from a small place in the universe beholding the wonder. I would remove just a few metaphors that you think are from the scientist and see what happens..Or, leave well enough alone! You are more than half way there as you said..What would the extra walk be?

I looked for some ancient Egyptian poems and found this one:

Extract from a 3,000 year-old papyrus-

She is one girl, there is no one like her.
She is more beautiful than any other.
Look, she is like a star goddess arising
at the beginning of a happy new year;
brilliantly white, bright skinned;
with beautiful eyes for looking,
with sweet lips for speaking;
she has not one phrase too many.
With a long neck and white breast,
her hair of genuine lapis lazuli;
her arm more brilliant than gold;
her fingers like lotus flowers,
with heavy buttocks and girt waist.
Her thighs offer her beauty,
with a brisk step she treads on ground.
She has captured my heart in her embrace.
She makes all men turn their necks
to look at her.
One looks at her passing by,
this one, the unique one.

******
I think the simplicity in this poem is an inspiration,
like a psalm..
A

Keifus said...

I greatly appreciate these comments, and can pretty much see what you mean. (My own critique would be that I failed to narrow it down to the right scale--didn't fit it in, in other words--I'd never thought before on how succinct a sonnet really is.)