"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits." G.K. Chesterton

Saturday, February 16, 2013

A fragment of an essay on wonder.


With our fangs of taxonomy muzzled with wonder, as the alluring fragrance of mystery provides no substance for their bite to seize, we are drawn toward its promising source. During that earliest stage of our encounter, we dare to look closer, and quietly step forward, slowly becoming aware of a latent form emerging out of the formless, secret garden, as a cloud would gather out of a homogeneous haze, slowly transforming into a barely perceptible,  faintly budding, chimerical sprout – as we step closer, the quivering penumbra of this autogenetic presence remains unstartled, as the zephyr of wonder conceals our scent. Every such step is what we call metaphysics.

Captivated by this animated apparition, as it blossoms into a seductively incandescent form, we pause mid stride, reach out, and grasp it. As the phantasmagorical fog of indeterminacy recedes, we remain transfixed by the now tangible, floral epiphenomenon, quivering weakly on our palm, its vivid fragrance stirring a familiar, sweet melody – of the lullaby we loved so much as children. As the abandoned blossom quietly withers before our eyes, its poignant odor reverberates into the somber motif of a Requiem for metaphysics.

We’ve clumsily drawn on the eternal sands of mystery’s boundless shore the laughable content, and modus operandi of our mind – the sad part lies in the inevitability of that outcome – we carry the stigma of our finitude with us all the time, and before long, its viral character infects any realm of being, totally.