Saturday, July 18, 2009

science explains the soul

"Do you know,"
she asked me once
with that crisp tone which means
she plans to impart some practical piece of science
in order to pin my flighty mind to earth,
"how we see things?
What we percieve in the way of colour
is actually a result of reflection,
rejection you might say.
It means that the object has absorbed
all the other colours but
for some reason, refuses entrance to this
and so it invites its way
into our eyes and we see the door
for example, as red.

"Even colours hate to be homeless." I comment.

This is not what she wanted 
and so she tries again
to inform and instruct
and with such information indicate my own distance
from the world of real, as she calls it.

"We see shapes in this way too.
Processing through lack as much as presence.
Occasionally a line exists not because it is there
but because there is nothing thrust between two somethings

I nodded.
She wanted to see if I understood.

"So, if you looked at him
you would see me."

I thought. 

"And love is a line because it appears 
to exist when there is really nothing between two someones."

She threw her hands in the air
and abandoned me 
to chocolates and black and white movies.

She did not hear me say-

"I thought love was a circle but it seems
the shortest distance between two disappointments-
the first is being alone
and the second is like it. only lonelier.
So i suppose a line is fitting."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

"and love is a line because it appears to exist when there is really nothing between two someones." so dry...my only question is why the scientist resorts to chocolate and black and white movies? surely the effect of nostalgia is lost on someone whose present is always becoming their past and to whom chocolate is just chemicals creating electrical signals on the tongue. Science is so wasted on the tangible...
however, may i also claim that love is a line because a line is infinitely many points and a point is one unit...so love is where two become one unit infinitely many times.
"two disappointments-the first is being alone and the second is like it. only lonelier"
pure genius hannah, pure genius! reminds me of the physics one you wrote a while back. love it

May-Belle said...

precisely.
although the scientist abandons the other girl. in that she gives the lovelorn girl up to the comfort of chocolate. she's not going to eat chocolate- she frowns on the emotional dependancy attached to the sticky treat