Sunday, July 04, 2004

mirror

i've been writing poetry for a long time, mostly silly, corny lyrics about unrequited love. but it's only recently that i've turned to reading poetry. funny isn't it?

well, one poet that really stood out from the rest is rainer maria rilke. i've encountered him too many times this year for me to ignore him, and i finally picked up a copy of "the selected poetry of rainer maria rilke", edited and translated by stephen mitchell, who is hailed to be the best translator of rilke's works (rilke's original work is in german and, later, french).

there was an introduction on rilke by robert hass, and he wrote about rilke as an extraordinary solitary, who chose to live inside the emptiness and longing inside of us, instead of looking to fill it, like what most of us would do. rilke's look on human relationships is really unusual, but he wrote alot on mirroring.

i haven't quite figured out what he means about mirroring, but there's a poem i read, "the last evening", that included the lines:

...he looked across at her
almost as one might gaze into a mirror:
so deeply was her every feature filled
with his young features, which bore his pain and were
more beautiful and seductive with each sound.


now, i'm still the shallow person i am. when i first got the *ting* revelation that the reason why i write poetry is because of that basic longing in each of us, i thought about what it is that we are longing for.

love? fortune? fame? acknowledgement? more pie?

i don't know what i'm writing poems for, what the emptiness means to me. but i do know what it is i search for when i meet people.

i search for people that mirror that chasm in me, only when i look at them, that hole is filled, complete and whole. i mean...when i look at my closest friends, i see little bits and pieces of me that are missing. which is why i keep them close to my heart, because i need them to continue being that little part that makes me more complete. like in the poem, their faces reflect how i feel, in little ways.

and that's what i look for. in everyone. it's an almost immediate thing. that look, that reflection...it's there when it's there. and when it's not...the person standing right in front of me can be gorgeous, interesting, absolutely attractive...and i'd look at them and feel as empty as before. they don't mirror me. and chances are, i don't mirror them.

of course, not everyone is looking for that mirroring effect. and i may just be trying to find my image in vain. it all seems so ideal all of a sudden. but that is how i know a person is worth the effort.

when i see the complete me in their eyes.

lishun at 11:18 PM

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