Pico de Orizaba

Pico de Orizaba
Taken from Huatusco, Veracruz, the closest town to Margarita's family's ranch.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Poem "Ofelia" written in Oaxaca early February 2003

8.5 years with Margarita.  I never wrote her a poem.  Not true.  When we first met, I tried writing her one in Spanish.  I believe that the most beautiful poems that I've written are inspired by the intense energy rising from interpersonal conflict within my own mind.  The less obtainable the person and the actualization of the desires, the bigger the illusion projected upon that person; the bigger the illusion of loss and pain projected upon myself.  The poem arrises from colliding of to geological plates.  The conflict becomes more stimulating than the reality.  The creative process results in a poem, a drawing, a painting more real than the actual person seen, but unknown.  Later on, I would thank the appearance of that person for having inspired me to create something new, something beautiful. The romantic poet lives with his heart in his hand and his head in the clouds.  He could be offering his heart, he could be protecting it, or he could be preparing to through it over the mountain ridge in the distance.  

Ofelia 
 
Words seem so unnecessary,
although I've spoken so much. 
At a moment, I feel that I know her, or I sense something incredibly beautiful. 
Her knowing overwhelmes me
as does her radiance-- 
She radiates beauty softly, subtly;
gentle rain. 
I am speechless.
 
Ofelia...
 
Appears in my vision as the sun rising at dawn. 
She is the stars, the moon... within my silent reverie,
In slow time
After she's settled into my world
When I slip into hers.
Momentary
Slow moments
Time expanded like laying under the stars, quietly listening... 
Anticipating the eventual sunrise
 
Some dawns are dusks
I know of a sunrise that brings sadness
In that light I lose sight of Ofelia
I become blind
I cease knowing.
 
Ofelia... 
 
Is an unintentional performance
A spectacle...
The Colibrí, Hummingbird
Floating over the flower softly
As water falls like tears into a pond
I am the audience, the spectator
Speechless, even as I speak
My words insignificant
I seek retreat into the shadows of her theatre
To sit in silence and to observe her for hours
As her light radiates towards me
I am swallowed by her performance
Mesmorized by her design,
The choreography of her movement,
Her costume--a gift of nature, God's love
 
Ofelia...
 
Is song
And the lyricist
I am bathed in her music,
A breeze carrying soft evening air of the perpetual Oaxacan Spring
 
Ofelia's presence is a movie
I am transfixed
I cannot leave the theatre mid-film,
not for hunger... thirst...  sleep...
I wish not to pause the film
 
Ofelia...
 
Is the perpetual beginning 
Regardless of time, she is morning,
Birdsong
 
I...
 
Wish I were the passive spectator but
 
Ophelia...
 
is not an object
She does not perform for me,
Just as mangos don't grow for my eating
Or lilacs for my smelling
In her presence, I'm compelled to speak,
My words, so many words, too many words
A justification
I am not a wall and
I cannot just stand there
staring... watching... floating in her aura
My words break the incantation, snap my trance
Although my heart continues swelling and
I remain anchored in her patio,
Moored to her eyes,
Chained by her words,
Floating on her expressions and
Shy and occassional flirtatious movements
 
When I see Ophelia, my heart leaps
When I stumble upon her presence unanticipated, while in movement,
The air before me solidifies, becomes an invisible wall
I collide with my sudden change in direction
I trip and slide back into her recepticle
 
I...
 
Want to listen to Ofelia... 
Feel her... 
know her...
pass through the spell and become calm, silent, comfortable.
But I am overwhelmed by emotion, fantasies--desires, fears, concerns...
The conflict between reality perceived with its assumed limitations
and knowing...
That, in the limitations of knowledge and understanding,
Anything and the unexpected beauties of life happen...
 
There are times when I wish for knowing and feeling nothing
Desires and needs--
For romantic love... For companionship...
--Are easily shelved
Is it not often better that way?
 
However...
 
My soul calls for joining, deeply...
I cannot ignore beauty
I dream of treating it as an object
Appreciating it from afar
But I'm never satisfied with book learning
Or walking through art museums
Photos of foreign landscapes don't sate my desire for travel...
It's a rare poem I read twice
 
We...
 
Are art in motion...
Poetry breathes between us...
 
Ofelia...
 
May be a stanza
But she's no metaphor
She is the figure and replaces nothing
 
I...
 
Am caught in the pulse of her song
That dances between the lines...
That flies above the words as mountains of a moving landscape
 
She...
 
Is the flower extended open,
 
I...
 
Am the Colibrí,
The hummingbird...
Hovering above,
Frozen in motion
 
I...
 
Couldn't just smile and walk away
 
I  am sorry for that.


No, I didn't write beautiful poems to Margarita.  I created and lived that beautiful poem with her.  Now we write it together.  I believed that I could trade everything of my past, my creativity, for Margarita.  But, there is a vitality within me, that requires a perpetual creative process.  In order to be vital with Margarita, I must find the vitality within myself and hope that it's real and not delusions...

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