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The Poem is on the Idea Tree site http://www.ideatree.com/poetry/m1shdw.htm which is full of a truly diverse range of links. The idea tree home page is at http://www.ideatree.com/
Shadow on the Wall
A Poem
The Idea Tree
Copyright ©1987, 1998, Mishtu Banerjee
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Shadow on the Wall
by Mishtu Banerjee
"Who, were I to scream
would hear me there
among the angelic hordes."
-- R.M. Rilke: Duino Elegies
I
Demon, have you known beauty;
that arc of terror
soldering nerve to bone;
that pulsing wavefront
forever falling
into itself.
I have read Schiller,
weeping
as my soul groaned to wake.
And Maxwell's equations
moved me to wonder:
"Was it a God who wrote these signs."
Demon, knowing the motion
the position, the spin
of every least molecule;
holding all past
and possibility
in your pocket
like loose change --
Demon, have you known beauty?
I have.
In moments
moments past.
Now, shadows haunt me
as I haunt
this wreckage of memory.
Duino, this banked castle
upon a rocky headland
along the sea.
I Ludwig Boltzman.
O Demon
what is to become of me?
II
Demon, I was born in twilight
as the dying embers of the dance
stilled towards Ash Wednesday.
And, I have walked always
in dust and twilight -
joy and despair,
each moulded of
the other's absence.
Now, I am an old man,
my blood runs slow,
and no heat moulds me.
I dwell among abstractions,
am misunderstood,
have become a name
that others rally to
or rail against
without conception.
Yes, these shambling threads
still move, still maintain
homeostasis
or in their age
run erect
for a passing girl.
This posits nothing more
than mere physiology.
There was a time
I could pluck atoms
out of the ether.
Now
I barely recall
the equations.
III
Demon, Are you there
behind my shadow
on that wall
or are you
the edge of light
that etches the dark?
Demon, are you alive?
A living knowledge
claims all passions.
A living knowledge
becomes the hum that
outlasts death.
I have written books and papers
and equations --
many, many equations;
Have tried to write poetry,
but all that came
were sobs and howls
that left me shamed.
So, I hid my terrors
among the numbers.
And behind the numbers
were the atoms.
I watched them dance
and listened
listened minutely,
until my mind rang with their rhythms.
This I think
-- were all else to be found
errors and wrecks
that would not cohere --
this I think
will last.
A simple monument:
"Ludwig Boltzman, born, died.
S = K log W"
This I think
may live.
IV
Demon, I have known beauty --
not the abstract
but the particular:
the imperfect
insect-mimic
manifest corrolla of an orchid;
a luminescent sea
ebbing against
a black moonless night;
the fine
irregular mesh
of theory.
Demon, pray forgive me
the curiosity that faltered.
I am left only
this final mystery --
a little light, a little rain.
The rope twists.
Darkness opens,
I pray I
need not return again.
- - - - Mishtu Banerjee, 1987
-- MishtuBanerjee - 16 Jul 2004
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