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| Morning at Lokbaintan — © Yudhi Fardian / 1x.com |
Physicists strive for a unified field theory that can unite our understanding of the fundamental forces of nature. But in me there is something that longs to unify hydrology and chromology. Are they one? Science may tell us no, but if you have ever seen how a teardrop can bend a candle’s light and paint a watercolor rainbow, what does your heart tell you?
Hydrochromology
By day
the sun beckons
to the tinctured sea.
Rising, the vapor
veil of tears
caresses the sky
like moth wings
on the magic lantern.
By night
the moon siphons off
the colors of the world.
Funneling up through the dark hallow,
their evanescent secrets pour
like whispers into deep ancient jugs
left by furtive gods.
Dawn breaks
the pink melon open
for the chroma to seep in.
Prism dew drops
wander down
Buddha-bellied jugs,
the throb of light
rehydrates
and the air hums
pellucid opal blue.
¿see? how
the rainbow is brushing
her unwoven aurora hair
and admiring herself
in our swollen
borrowed mirror?
© Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillow
John Coltrane saw it in Mal Waldron's Soul Eyes ...
I offer this poem for this week's One Shot Wednesday, the weekly "open mike" at One Stop Poetry. Click on the links for poems from other contributors. New batches of links arrive every Wednesday.
lorenzo i am so thrilled to read this thoughtful and insightful writing! it's such a cool possibility. colour is like music in my world. it comes from another realm and yes, i know that both colour and music can be described mathematically, scientifically, emotionally and physically and then there's that something else that describes the ongoing creation. i'm going to come back for some of john's music later this evening. steven
ReplyDeleteYour thoughts about where the color goes at night are wonderful. Yours are the kinds of questions I so appreciate, as they reveal so curious and inquiring a mind. I'm finishing now Oliver Sack's most recent book in which some of his stories involve people with synethesia, people who have lost their sight but visualize words in colors. It's incredibly fascinating to me.
ReplyDeleteIn your poem, I especially liked these lines: "evanescent secrets pour/like whispers into deep ancient jugs/left by furtive gods", "Buddha-bellied jugs", and "unwoven aurora hair". Beautiful!
Though I've learned that you ask questions that maybe no one else asks, it still surprises me when you do it. What doesn't surprise me is that in your great questions you are seeking the ways things are stitched together with invisible threads. How did mysteries collide? Why would we separate them when they are interdependent in our hearts?
ReplyDeleteThe images of the sky's colors, and the states of water on its journey with light, blend effortlessly with your flowing language, and with the soulful music you've included. Replaying the music while watching the photographic images just echoes the whole argument, and my heart answers: Yes.
You really should come and play at 10thDom you know.
ReplyDeleteOn some level we all intuit alchemique processes beyond detection of the senses. It's a delight when someone with your sensibilities and talent articulates this for the rest of us (speaking for myself) not so endowed. How I love posts like this that set my thoughts on a trajectory they would not have otherwise taken.
ReplyDeleteWonderful blend of an incredible photograph, fabulous sax and your poetry.
ReplyDeletenice...thanks for the prop of one shot lorenzo...love the thought of where the colors go...and though i am a fan of the night, i do like my colors...and nice personification of the rainbow in your close...
ReplyDeleteA beautiful poem. They say that without light there is no color, but that is a lot like the question of when a tree falls in the forest, and there is nobody there, does it not make a sound?
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely gift you give us today, Lorenzo!
ReplyDeleteAloha from Honolulu
Comfort Spiral
An astonishing imaginative leap, Lorenzo, I did so enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteMyself, though, I've always thought it was those Rilkean 'bees of the invisible' who gathered the nectar-colours of the day, flower by flower, working on them and transforming them in the hive by night - to release them into an ever more colourful, honey-hued dawn. (Bees see in colour, have a greater colour range than any other creature, see far more nuanced colours of the spectrum than we do, and can even see ultraviolet light.)
Lorenzo, your questions are brilliant, do you think on these things daily, or just a master of thought and musing? (Perhaps both.)
ReplyDeleteYour question is a poem, perfect, in itself,
"where do colors go at night, before they are returned to us at dawn?"
Hi, Steven. I definitely see and feel what you say about color and music in the writing on your blog, where your sentient eye and poetic ear merge so completely. It is good that we have those mathematical, scientific, emotional and physical means for embracing the world around us and that "something else" you mention, that sixth sense, the inner echo of it all. To me that is what poetry is all about. Have a beautiful day.
ReplyDeleteSteve's reflections on color and music make for a fine intro and segue to your stimulating comment, Maureen, on people who have lost their sight, but visualize words in color. Oliver Sacks is always so fascinating. I will explore the concept of synethesia; it seems so ripe with possibilities. Thank you, as always, for your kind words.
Hi, Baino. I really would like to participate in the Tenth Daughter of Memory. It is something I have long set as a goal/project. The main problem I have is that I do not write fiction. Not sure I know how. While much of what I write may seem more completely divorced from reality than most fiction, it is just that I have a somewhat dreamy, delirious sense of this real world around us. But I'll get to the 10DoM sometime.
What a delight, Robert (Solitary Walker), to see you applying Rilke in this way. I can definitely embrace this lovely nectar-and-honey interpretation of where color goes, ascribing the phenomenon to the handiwork of those Rilkean 'bees of the invisible', as much as my own hydrochromology, a wellfounded scientific doctrine that has stood the test of time ever since I invented it 12 hours ago or so.
ReplyDeleteTo me, one of the glories of poetry is that, unlike what happens with many approaches to science and to formal religion, poetry admits, accepts and actually thrives on different, contrasting and even contradictory 'explanations' of the universe about us. So there is no need to choose between one view or the other.
I was unaware of what you say about the astounding chromatic faculties of bees. Quite astonishing.
And to all friends and commenters: today I have tried to reply to all comments individually by email, instead of with a comment on my own. For some reason, when I get the email notification of comments at my gmail address, there are some blog friends who I cannot reply to by email, so I have done so here.
Love,love,love: "pellucid opal blue"
ReplyDeleteWonderful, Lorenzo!
a completely sensuous poem. you are channeling neruda.
ReplyDeletei'm reading your post and thinking how weird that there is a color charge in particles in the theory of quantum chromodynamics. if that can happen, then why not a goddess of the chromatic cycle, governed by the moon?
There is, Amanda! She is called Iris.
ReplyDeleteA truly delightful and thought-provoking poem, Lorenzo. I also loved the your introduction, calling up the questions that flowed seamlessly into the poem itself. This whole posting has a kind of alternating rhythm to it — swinging back and forth from the questions on the left side of the brain to the intuitive and imaginative responses on the right side.
ReplyDeleteI love your take on where the colors go. A lush and lovely piece, Lorenzo. Notice I included the triple 'L' in that statement.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Terresa: your initial question is a poem in itself! And then you weave for us a beautiful silken gift: the colors in the photos, the colors of the spectrum, the colors in the music, the colors of the night...
ReplyDelete...evanescent secrets pour like whispers...ah...
The final stanza blew me away. Thank you.
Phew - You are far too clever for me :)
ReplyDeleteThe sun beckons, the moon siphons, vapor caresses, dew drops wander, light throbs, air hums, the rainbow is brushing... I just love the "action" that is in this poem - the tugging of color back and forth. Wonderfully imaginative and an inspiring piece for me to learn from. :)
ReplyDeleteYour writing is far from fiction as the universe is but a primal pool of chaos that I believe takes all thought and matter,and all that we know as consciousness to create, destroy and create anew eternally..is that not Lorenzo...Alchemy...fantastic images in this beautiful piece....thank you...bkm
ReplyDeleteEnchanting piece, the imagery both vivid and enticing. There was a magical haze about the whole thing, and it flowed easy for it - certainly a poetic thought, where those colors go. Personally, I find the night as vibrant as the day, but I do understand your longing for the colors of the sun's sweet rays. Good introduction, with a clever piece flowing from the thought...and a beautiful shot accompanying, if I might say so. Talk about colorful.
ReplyDeleteStunning-- I especially loved "By night
ReplyDeletethe moon siphons off
the colors of the world.
Funneling up through the dark hallow,
their evanescent secrets pour
like whispers into deep ancient jugs
left by furtive gods."
I know those furtive gods, and that moon that siphons. Thank you for your heartening words on my poem, Lorenzo!
Incredible thought-provoking; I love the thought of "where do colours go at night?" I shall think about that next time I watch the sun set.
ReplyDeleteCJ
I always enjoy the make you think writes and this was for sure one of them! Well done. :)
ReplyDeleteHello..I feel as though I just found an unmarked cave full of light and neon colors that no one wanted to share because the beauty was so precious, it felt like gold or jewels. This was the effect your words had on me. Sorry I haven't found my way to your work before but I surely shall again. I loved it all; I loved the concept; it feels as though it's been inside me always. What a poet you are! Thank you, Gay @beachanny
ReplyDeleteLorenzo
ReplyDeleteI have to remember not to read the comments for I lose my train of thought --- a transcendental color cast reality where life beckons the soul to play. sublime,
nice to see you at one stop.
joanny
Great hyrdo-centric, smart-minded, truly original poem.
ReplyDeleteYou had me with your opening image from West Java. Glorious!
ReplyDeleteYou ask a great fundamental question and now you have me wondering the same. I adore the notion that the moon is entrusted with the safekeeping of the world's colors until she returns them at dawn. I can't think of a better place for them to rest for the evening.
Delightful, Lorenzo!
I love the questions...and the poem! I agree with Ruth in that you ask the questions that not many people seem to ask, and it is fantastic.
ReplyDelete"By night
the moon siphons off
the colors of the world."
Beautiful. I also love how it's not just the colors that are siphoned...but the secrets, too. The last two lines are also powerful. Our mirror is "swollen and borrowed." Yes! Wonderful work, Lorenzo. Thank you for the questions (and answers).
Oh, it's gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful concept and poem! You have uttered to many apt and poignant phrases that you have left me spellbound at your sensitivity and craftsmanship! I must read this again!
ReplyDeleteSecrets hinted at and never quite revealed, will always haunt us.
I'm glad to have discovered your blog!