Tell me please,
if you have seen,
what lies between the magnet
and the object of its pursuit?
It's a pull, yes. Explainable;
quite easily, right-?
But can you touch the chord;
pull it like a string, strum it, interrupt it?
Of course.
But where is it from-
beyond attraction...
So, gravity has the same modus operandi.
As nondiscriminatory, as flexible, per se, so one says.
It's a Law of Physics too-one can be sure.
While we break it every day, obsessed by
Air Anarchy, in our endless tries to defy
flights of fancy, let’s do levitation, zero gee.
Not explaining the monkey on our shoulders,
elephants squatting on chests, legs like lead,
and arms that mysteriously float
after being constrained, contained, compressed-
beyond extraction…
Okay, now what is that smell, and why, or how does it work?
The innate swoon of a baby’s head,
making a maternal perfume; loves incense;
coconut oil melting in the sun, beads rest on sandy shards,
smoky wood in campfire rings, popping on a summer's night,
warm cinnamon...
The crook of your neck, just behind your left ear lobe
crackly new books,
squeaky clean skin-
beyond satisfaction…
I won't bother asking, from where or what,
is this thing, so refuted by scholars, called intuition-
since it is beyond my simple human erudition-
but is scientifically, senselessly, purely poetic,
beyond literal abstraction…
Image of painting (oil) by Jacob Philipp Hackert, 'Fisher Family at nighttime campfire with turbulent sea', 1778. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.