Transcendence
Oct 30 2014
There is a moment in time
when the high-wire artist stops,
the long pole quivering, his body light.
So exquisitely still
I am filled with certainty
perfection is possible,
that all the forces in life
can balance out
exactly hold.
His muscled feet
grip the wire
shoulders ache with the weight of the pole.
But from here, it seems effortless
and we all seem to levitate
locking our gaze overhead.
A small lithe man
suspended so high in the air.
But it's not his weightlessness
we should envy,
as he dances, imperceptibly
and sweats in his spangled vest.
It's his singular focus, intense devotion
to one consuming thing.
Because if his eyes were lasers
the wire would burn,
if his mind a poem
a single word.
This is the purity
we seek out all our lives.
That one ecstatic moment
when we rise up out of ourselves
and feel transcendent peace.
When everything stops.
When time doesn't count.
When the universe
is so perfectly balanced
we needn't look down,
and there is no place to fall.
Transcendence is a universal drive, something we all seek out. It's one basis for religion. It's why we do drugs, or meditate. I understand some lucky people experience something similar to this with LSD: a oneness with the universe, a sense of utter serenity. The single word that says it best is "balance". And what better way to exemplify balance that the high-wire man?
Elizabeth Renzetti, a writer I much admire, wrote a piece in today's paper about work/life balance (Searching for a Balanced Life). It was she who used the tightrope walker as a motif (in particular, Philippe Petite, who in 1974 performed a daring and clandestine walk between the newly erected World Trade Centre Towers). I was moved to try my own riff on this, and so shamelessly stole her idea. (Was it Oscar Wilde who said something like "good artists borrow; great artists steal"??!! I hardly claim to be great. But I think in art this idea of re-working existing ideas, of derivation and homage, is universal and unavoidable. Very little is truly original.)
In the poem, this sense of balance and serenity -- and even transcendence -- is achieved through focus. It's easy to envy his apparent weightlessness and effortlessness. But as the poem makes clear, his act is neither; it's hard work. What's enviable is his singular focus, as concentrated as a point of magnified light. I think "flow" -- that wonderful clarifying quality one feels in a highly creative state -- is roughly similar, in its concentration and exclusion, to the laser-like focus the aerialist of the poem must feel.
I like the lines: ... if his eyes were lasers/ the wire would burn,/ if his mind a poem/ a single word. Because I began the poem with that image of the laser-like eyes, so it was gratifying when it found its way in. And because the rhyme and cadence of these 4 lines work really well. But also because I have this recurrent thought: that all my poems are too wordy, and that the absolute apotheosis of my writing would be when I can distill a poem down to a single word. There is a quote I can't attribute, but will paraphrase: "all poetry aspires to be Haiku." At least!
There is a moment in time
when the high-wire artist stops,
the long pole quivering, his body light.
So exquisitely still
I am filled with certainty
perfection is possible,
that all the forces in life
can balance out
exactly hold.
His muscled feet
grip the wire
shoulders ache with the weight of the pole.
But from here, it seems effortless
and we all seem to levitate
locking our gaze overhead.
A small lithe man
suspended so high in the air.
But it's not his weightlessness
we should envy,
as he dances, imperceptibly
and sweats in his spangled vest.
It's his singular focus, intense devotion
to one consuming thing.
Because if his eyes were lasers
the wire would burn,
if his mind a poem
a single word.
This is the purity
we seek out all our lives.
That one ecstatic moment
when we rise up out of ourselves
and feel transcendent peace.
When everything stops.
When time doesn't count.
When the universe
is so perfectly balanced
we needn't look down,
and there is no place to fall.
Transcendence is a universal drive, something we all seek out. It's one basis for religion. It's why we do drugs, or meditate. I understand some lucky people experience something similar to this with LSD: a oneness with the universe, a sense of utter serenity. The single word that says it best is "balance". And what better way to exemplify balance that the high-wire man?
Elizabeth Renzetti, a writer I much admire, wrote a piece in today's paper about work/life balance (Searching for a Balanced Life). It was she who used the tightrope walker as a motif (in particular, Philippe Petite, who in 1974 performed a daring and clandestine walk between the newly erected World Trade Centre Towers). I was moved to try my own riff on this, and so shamelessly stole her idea. (Was it Oscar Wilde who said something like "good artists borrow; great artists steal"??!! I hardly claim to be great. But I think in art this idea of re-working existing ideas, of derivation and homage, is universal and unavoidable. Very little is truly original.)
In the poem, this sense of balance and serenity -- and even transcendence -- is achieved through focus. It's easy to envy his apparent weightlessness and effortlessness. But as the poem makes clear, his act is neither; it's hard work. What's enviable is his singular focus, as concentrated as a point of magnified light. I think "flow" -- that wonderful clarifying quality one feels in a highly creative state -- is roughly similar, in its concentration and exclusion, to the laser-like focus the aerialist of the poem must feel.
I like the lines: ... if his eyes were lasers/ the wire would burn,/ if his mind a poem/ a single word. Because I began the poem with that image of the laser-like eyes, so it was gratifying when it found its way in. And because the rhyme and cadence of these 4 lines work really well. But also because I have this recurrent thought: that all my poems are too wordy, and that the absolute apotheosis of my writing would be when I can distill a poem down to a single word. There is a quote I can't attribute, but will paraphrase: "all poetry aspires to be Haiku." At least!
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