Those who create are like you, God.
They long for the eternal.
Carving, they say: Stone, be forever!
And that means: be yours.
And lovers also gather your inheritance.
They are the poets of one brief hour.
They kiss an expressionless mouth into a smile
as if creating it anew, more beautiful.
From The Book of Hours II, 10
i find something contradictory in this, the desire to be eternal through creation and yet the fleetingness, the acceptance of the lovers to create for only an hour. how can these be equal when they are opposite? i wonder if the ego comes into play between the two. is it ego that wants of our creations to be eternal? and is it the more wise soul that allows love and poetry to be fleeting?
ReplyDeletewe should allow everything it's spontaneous flight. don't you know, it comes back to lit the trees, whether we are present or not.
i do not want of eternal. i want for my teeth into this moment but for a flashing instant. i am glad for this new place i am in.
xo
erin
I understand, erin, I do. I think.
ReplyDeleteYet I wonder if they are contradictory, opposing. I see two sides of the same item.
Funny, I do want of eternal. But I don't strive for it. I see it sometimes (yes, when I'm present), and when I see it, I want it. When it's infused in a moment, it is both fleeting and eternal. In fact, I want it when, and because, it is both!
If it's only eternal ... stone, hard, slow ... and can't be renewed or reborn, what does it bring? Yet, even a stone sings new tunes when we listen.
....[God's] "inheritance" is for us to gather, to bring into our embrace, even if for only a moment....
ReplyDeleteI take that inheritance to be our creative spirit....this says to me that what matters is that we find ourselves re-creating, knowing that what we create may or may not endure....
Like erin, I wonder what ego has to do with this, and I wonder whether sometimes our egos get in the way of our gathering our inheritances....
Perhaps the eternal lies in the continual recreation--in different ways--of that one brief hour?
ReplyDeleteYet, even a stone sings new tunes when we listen. i like to think so, ruth. this is beautiful, but i wonder if it is a careful ruse, not by you, but by all of us. i wonder if we are really ready to let loose our fingers from our significance. i wonder if i am.
ReplyDeletexo
erin