Being Both Here and Beyond

[Image: ‘Circe,’ by user TheoJunior on Flickr; used here under a Creative Commons license (thank you!). About its subject, he caption supplied by the artist says only (and wryly), “Aeaean weaver, zookeeper, apothecary, and charming hostess.” You can read more about TheoJunior’s series of molded polymer-clay faces at his/her Flickr “about” page.]

From whiskey river:

In the Street

Here we are, on top of the utopian arc. The water is shallow. An oil spill shimmers on the surface like a lens catches light and folds it in front of a mirror. If someone stands next to you, they are there, even when outside the picture. Which makes total obscurity relative to luck and such. Unlike the law, architecture lasts. A façade, like an ideal, can be oppressive unless balanced by a balcony on which you can stand and call down to those in the street, Come over here and look up at us. Aren’t we exactly what you wanted to believe in?

(Mary Jo Bang [source])

…and:

The world has signed a pact with the devil; it had to. It is a covenant to which every thing, even every hydrogen atom, is bound. The terms are clear: if you want to live, you have to die; you cannot have mountains and creeks without space, and space is a beauty married to a blind man. The blind man is Freedom, or Time, and he does not go anywhere without his great dog Death. The world came into being with the signing of the contract. A scientist calls it the Second Law of Thermodynamics. A poet says, “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower/ Drives my green age.” This is what we know. The rest is gravy.

(Annie Dillard [source])

…and:

Breath

When you see them
tell them I am still here,
that I stand on one leg while the other one dreams,
that this is the only way,

that the lies I tell them are different
from the lies I tell myself,
that by being both here and beyond
I am becoming a horizon,

that as the sun rises and sets I know my place,
that breath is what saves me,
that even the forced syllables of decline are breath,
that if the body is a coffin it is also a closet of breath,

that breath is a mirror clouded by words,
that breath is all that survives the cry for help
as it enters the stranger’s ear
and stays long after the world is gone,

that breath is the beginning again, that from it
all resistance falls away, as meaning falls
away from life, or darkness falls from light,
that breath is what I give them when I send my love.

(Mark Strand [source])

Not from whiskey river:

The Ghost Light
(excerpt)

Lit from within is the sole secure way
to traverse dark matter. Some life forms?—
certain mushrooms, snails, jellyfish, worms?—
glow bioluminescent, and people as well; we
emit infrared light from our most lucent selves.
Our tragedy is we can’t see it.

We see by reflection. We need biofluorescence
to show our true colors. External illumination can
distort, though. When gravity bends light, huge galaxy
clusters can act as telescopes, elongating background
images of star systems to faint arcs?—?a lensing effect
like viewing distant street lamps through a glass of wine.

(Robin Morgan [source])

…and:

Aunt Joe Learns To Keep Her Balance

Everything I need arrives in time–sunlight,
a little breeze at night, dancing music,
as though a kind Aunt were lending me her things,
so I begin to lend mine too. Now I’m famous for it.
My pie plates turn up at church suppers,
my fishing lures are drying on Briske’s grass,
Last week I sent my cat to be someone’s mouser
and now her eyes glow like flashlights
from the neighbor’s basement windows. Objects blow
back and forth among us in an erratic trade wind.
Sometimes I have too much, sometimes too little.
Sitting on my porch, I count my rain hats.
All afternoon people have returned them.
I look up. The sky lowers and growls.
Here comes Mrs. Sorensen on her bicycle wearing
three rain hats, waving an umbrella for me.
She’s old enough to be my mother, but
she still tips dangerously, first to one side
then to the other. I try to memorize it,
how she keeps her balance.

(Jeanne Murray Walker [source])

…and:

[Charles Darwin’s ship] the Beagle had rung down its anchor at what the Spanish had called, with singular discernment, the “Encantadas,” the Enchanted Isles.

Odysseus had come similarly upon Circe’s island, only to find his crew transformed into animals—specifically, into pigs. When, at his behest, the changelings were created men once more, they took on a more lively and youthful appearance. By the sixteenth century the Florentine writer Giovanni Battista Gelli had produced his Circe, in which a variety of animals refused Odysseus’ offer to restore them to their original form. Their arguments for remaining as they were constitute an ingenious commentary on the human condition. From rabbit to lion the animals are united in being done with humanity. Not all the argumentative wiles of Odysseus can talk them back into the shape of Homo sapiens. The single exception proves to be a Greek philosopher immured in the body of an elephant. He alone consents to a renewed transformation…

Circe kept herself hidden, but it was evident to the wondering Darwin that there was a power hidden in time and isolation that alone could transmute, not just men, but all things living, into wavering shadows.

(Loren Eiseley [source])

…and:

The Paradox of Life

A bit beyond perception’s reach
I sometimes believe I see
that Life is two locked boxes, each
containing the other’s key.

(Piet Hein [source])