How Our Looking Ripens Things

“Every phenomenon on earth is symbolic.  

 And each symbol is an open gate, through 

 which the soul can enter the inner part of 

 the world, where you and I and day and night 

 are all one.” 

                                       ~Hermann Hesse

The literal minded see me as their enemy.

We barely speak the same language.

I believe in the implications of things.

They believe in the things themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I know a thing’s worth

like any other.

But things themselves haven't need

for believing in; 

they are themselves without us,

objects reflected in a predatory eye.

Believing in the implications 

of said things gives them a life 

they don’t have otherwise.

Take Gwendolyn for example.

She lives in a tower but longs to live

in a house in the valley 

with a garden. She’s conflicted. 

The literal see Gwendolyn

through a telescopic lens. 

They think she suffers from

the grass is always greener fallacy;

being that A) a garden is involved

and B) a tower can keep her safe from 

crime and rising sea water.

But those who believe in implications

have observations far less chaste.

In searching for self empowerment,

Gwen is engaging in a construct 

of male empowerment whose aim is to rise

above the vulnerable and defenseless.

In living more vertically she assumes

a defensive position against the

passage of time being as horizontal

as it is linear.

Her longing

for a house in the valley might be seen

as a loss of the eternal feminine

which though positioned lowly

by nature, invites all things

to flow towards it.

Her quest for verticality is a spiritual one.

She reaches upwards for inspiration

for a higher (all seeing) perspective.

Gwendolyn’s desire for a garden is her way

of staying in touch with what nurtures

her by spreading its tendrils, 

a green embrace born to be

given as much as received.

Consider Vincent.

Vincent is a hoarder. Everything he touches

he paralyzes, preserves, and keeps

as if in prehistoric amber.

To a poet the image feels metaphorical

but not at all how Vincent sees things. 

Vincent is literal minded and does not apprehend 

the difference between things as they are

and things made otherwise by coveting.

Vincent’s behavior defies logic, offending

the literal tendency regarding right and wrong. 

For the literal, chaos is wrong and order right.

One only sees the gluttony and therefore

their judgement throws up its hands.

If I tell you that Vincent is intelligent

and sentimental, easily hurt, and defiant,

he becomes more like the rest of us.

But the rest of us aren’t grabbing onto

ephemera and holding on for dear life.

Vincent is an over-cherisher.

And here’s the kicker.

His dis-ease is literal,

not metaphorical.

He cares not in dabbling in implications,

believing things are what give life its meaning;

that the things themselves will explain him.

Not, as a poet might offer:

as bread crumbs dropped 

in the foresight of finding

one's way home.

1/16/2022