“Suspicion derives directly from the temporal finitude of eroticization—I can no more escape it than I can shirk my flesh.” Jean-Luc Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon, p. 152
Down by the water
after sundown, listen to
the ducks call. Refuse
to see the beloved
face. The ducks in the darkness
call. Accept the void.
We reached the glory
of our flesh last night. We part
confused and happy.
Listen to the ducks.
You have nothing to say, she
has nothing to say.
The poem takes the reader through the spiritual exercise of deliberately dwelling in the past moment of love as a discipline of shutting out extraneous stimuli both sensory and mental and opening the self to the gift of lavished love. This is a challenging poem but rereading it pays off and brings the reader to a startling realization of the significance of not making words or images–not because words or images are bad but because resisting that urge leaves space for what is other to the self and not just other but uniquely appropriately other-the beloved united to the lover.