Incomprehensible
Glass
On the window, above the
sink
a fly
a fly
standing still.
Microscopic feet
Microscopic feet
holding fast,
grip, detach
at will.
Gravity hardly matters
grip, detach
at will.
Gravity hardly matters
when a creature so small
can fall any distance
and not be killed.
Can hang upside-down
as matter-of-fact, as flat-on-the-ground.
and not be killed.
Can hang upside-down
as matter-of-fact, as flat-on-the-ground.
Or in zig-zag flight
his elemental skill.
Who sees the world
through invisible glass
he cannot possibly breach.
Kaleidoscopically
via multi-facetted eyes.
A memento mori
in my cheerful kitchen,
where the laws of physics
are so very different
for each.
Whose time goes fast, compared to me;
when seconds, at rest
must feel like days.
He walks, I swat
and off he darts,
like a shot, past my head.
An inscrutable fly, incessantly buzzing
beating against the pane.
Until he stops,
as if gathering strength
must feel like days.
He walks, I swat
and off he darts,
like a shot, past my head.
An inscrutable fly, incessantly buzzing
beating against the pane.
Until he stops,
as if gathering strength
or an exquisite act of
evasion,
held
by surface tension
incomprehensible glass.
He looks almost decorative, in his stillness,
a life-like pendant
pinned to her dress,
a piece of eccentric art.
Back-lit, against the window,
each tiny detail
precisely etched.
How unnatural this seems,
a creature of flight
immobilized.
As still
as a compressed spring
hair-trigger tight.
Where I wish him dead.
And he
held
by surface tension
incomprehensible glass.
He looks almost decorative, in his stillness,
a life-like pendant
pinned to her dress,
a piece of eccentric art.
Back-lit, against the window,
each tiny detail
precisely etched.
How unnatural this seems,
a creature of flight
immobilized.
As still
as a compressed spring
hair-trigger tight.
Where I wish him dead.
And he
intent on the light.
Lydia Davis, a writer I much admire, writes extremely short stories that are much more like flash fiction or poetry than the usual narrative form. She contributed a piece to the recent Atlantic (July/August 2014) about her creative process. I recall referring to her in a previous blurb as well.
She says she starts by sitting at her desk and putting down anything that comes to mind -- her thoughts, or simple descriptions of what's around her, carefully written and revised. She gave an example from her notebook -- "Although the house seemed very bright, clean, and elegant, one could tell by the number of flies that swarmed in it, landed on the furniture, and crept up and down the windowpanes, that something was rotten." -- and then explained how flies walk up and down the windowpane in front of her desk. (And also delightfully explained that the original "crept" would have been revised to "walked" because that's what they do: they are simply making their way, and it's only solipsistic observers like us who see it as furtive. Or at least I think that's what I think she may have meant: she actually explained this by making a reference to Nabokov, which went completely over my head!)
I love writing about the small and the diurnal. And I also love exploring orders of magnitude: zooming in and out from the macro to the miniscule; alluding to how different orders of magnitude can co-exist, obliviously over-lapping in time and space. So a fly on a windowpane was irresistible to me.
And, in words like "inscrutable" and "incomprehensible", there is also this idea of the unknowable other. We have a tendency to anthropomorphize; I suppose part of our innate urge to understand and explain, to discern patterns, to experience empathy. But where truly knowing is impossible, to admit ignorance is a necessary act of both humility and respect. Originally, I had an "ee" rhyme going into the final stanza, and was tempted to use something like "intent/ on freedom": a shameless anthropomorphism. So I'm so much more please with "light".
I like the idea of memento mori and death contrasted with the cheerful kitchen; of the insignificant with the momentous. And I like the ambivalence and tension in the two views of the fly: the wonder of creation, of a beautifully rendered piece of art, closely observed; in contrast with the nuisance bug, casually squashed without a second thought.
Lydia Davis, a writer I much admire, writes extremely short stories that are much more like flash fiction or poetry than the usual narrative form. She contributed a piece to the recent Atlantic (July/August 2014) about her creative process. I recall referring to her in a previous blurb as well.
She says she starts by sitting at her desk and putting down anything that comes to mind -- her thoughts, or simple descriptions of what's around her, carefully written and revised. She gave an example from her notebook -- "Although the house seemed very bright, clean, and elegant, one could tell by the number of flies that swarmed in it, landed on the furniture, and crept up and down the windowpanes, that something was rotten." -- and then explained how flies walk up and down the windowpane in front of her desk. (And also delightfully explained that the original "crept" would have been revised to "walked" because that's what they do: they are simply making their way, and it's only solipsistic observers like us who see it as furtive. Or at least I think that's what I think she may have meant: she actually explained this by making a reference to Nabokov, which went completely over my head!)
I love writing about the small and the diurnal. And I also love exploring orders of magnitude: zooming in and out from the macro to the miniscule; alluding to how different orders of magnitude can co-exist, obliviously over-lapping in time and space. So a fly on a windowpane was irresistible to me.
And, in words like "inscrutable" and "incomprehensible", there is also this idea of the unknowable other. We have a tendency to anthropomorphize; I suppose part of our innate urge to understand and explain, to discern patterns, to experience empathy. But where truly knowing is impossible, to admit ignorance is a necessary act of both humility and respect. Originally, I had an "ee" rhyme going into the final stanza, and was tempted to use something like "intent/ on freedom": a shameless anthropomorphism. So I'm so much more please with "light".
I like the idea of memento mori and death contrasted with the cheerful kitchen; of the insignificant with the momentous. And I like the ambivalence and tension in the two views of the fly: the wonder of creation, of a beautifully rendered piece of art, closely observed; in contrast with the nuisance bug, casually squashed without a second thought.
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