cursed and enchanted
love is a crowded theater
our focus on the pretty
the birds the leaves the flowers
a patchwork pattern by which we map the known
earth cult to sky cult
a sequence of circular returns
beginning and ending at the same point
women's centrality gives her a stability of identity
she does not have to become
but only to be
the western idea of history as a propulsive movement into the future
a progressive or providential design
climaxing in the revelation of a second coming
is a male formulation
no woman could have coined such an idea
since it is a strategy of evasion of women's own cyclic nature
in which man dreads being caught
woman does not dream of transcendental or historical escape
from natural cycle
since she is that cycle
bound to nature's calendar
an appointment she can't refuse
she has never been deluded by the mirage of free will
every time we say nature is pretty
we are saying a prayer
perfect objectivity does not exist
every thought bares some emotional burden
had we time or energy to pursue it
each random choice
from the color of a toothbrush to a decision over a menu
could be made to yield its secret meaning in the inner drama of our lives
but in exhaustion we shut out this psychic supersaturation
emotion is chaos
love for all means coldness to something or someone
imagination has a price
which we are paying every day
women do not need to conceptualize
in order to exist
unreachable omnipotence of woman
everything is melting in nature
we think we see objects
but our eyes are slow
and partial
nature is blooming and withering
in long puffy respirations
rising and falling in oceanic wave motion
spiritualization of cruelty
pain made pleasure
the pagan cinema of western perception
let us not steal from the eye
to give to the ear
nature is forever playing solitaire with herself
there are ideas in images
a woman putting on men's clothing
merely steals social power
but a man putting on women's clothes
is searching for god
springtime goddess
showered in flowers of mathematical calculation
pieta is a tableau of female immortality
and perishable manhood
we speak of falling apart
getting on top of things
getting it all together
only in the west is there such conviction of the unity of personality
the Italian imagination is darkly archaic
it hears the voices of the dead
mona lisa
sfumato is her game
the more he plays it
the less leonardo can paint
a poet is not always master of his own poem
voyeurism is the amoral aesthetic of the aggressive western eye
transporting us unseen across space and time
masks = magic
western identity is impersonation
alchemy's spiritual aim is the achievement of inner silver or inner gold
dazzling electric wit
costume transforms thought
a liquid prisoner
pent in walls of glass
an alchemical image from sonnet 5
where summer flowers are distilled into an alembic of perfume
like love and beauty transformed into art
in nearness we enter each other's animal aura
there is magic there
both black and white
