We are ourselves the incomprehensible closest to ourselves. Jean-Luc Marion
Work-in-progress
The mirror she saw
shine on the tide reappeared—
I see it myself.
I’m looking out and
seeing what raised her questions—
we had disagreed
about narcicism.
I see myself in that calm
tonight and wonder
if she also saw
the incomprehensible
thatness that we share.
One might think of Aristotle(?) when he observed that the lover becomes the beloved through loving. THe poem takes the reader into the porousness of the loving self and the way love explodes the illusion of the solitary self and makes us see the self as irreducibly made by and par of community (paradigmatically the triangle of lover, beloved, and other). The imagery of sea and reflection, and the concepts of identity and narcissism, create depth but not for its own sake. It is the depth of knowing by being known in love.
The poem is fluent and full of finesse. It moves easily from observation to reflection, integrating philosophical consideration without letting technical language distort its grace. Its effortless momentum leaves the reader certain that the poet’s question is answered in the affirmative.