Tuesday, November 24, 2009

TC: Sunflowers


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File:Schiele - Sonnenblumen 2.jpg





A clear night sky steeped in blue and green starlight
Hollow and deep as a huge sea shell flushed from within
And reddening as the rising god once again commands
The drowsy sunflowers to lift their heads and open their black eyes

Teaches us how the world begins all over the earth
How to greet one another in language beyond words
To depart unconcerned with any idea of return and perhaps
To at last begin to speak without not thinking

















Sonnenblumen: Egon Schiele, 1911

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is very thoughtful. For the reader (this reader) to muse over.
'To at last begin to speak without not thinking' You do it time and time again. That perfect curtain close and yes; without the not thinking, I must learn this.

TC said...

I must learn it too. Though if I ever do, it will undoubtedly be well too late.

(In that respect, the closing admonition has a bit of the ring of "do as I say, not as I do".)

But I suppose poets have always been permitted to get away with not living up to their own didactic admonitions. Perhaps the degree of license they are afforded in that regard derives from the fact people feel a bit sorry for them, they seem to find it so very difficult simply to summon up a bit of common sense and get on with it -- ?

Elmo St. Rose said...

that's a tall order for the
the sun to deliver,
"speak without not thinking"

"Ah sunflower weary of time"

but then Einstein said he refused
to believe that God was playing
dice with the universe

TC said...

The dice are in our hands.

Odds 11-10 against.

-- ancient Chinese saying