the perfect astronaut.
the difference between narcissus and a sunflower is a point of view: the first stares at his image in water and says: "there is no I but I," and the second looks at the sun and says: "I am".
dear little voice,
i have a list for you. it is here:
‘the striking thinness of the atmosphere.’
‘you can block it out with your thumb’
‘so small, so fragile…’
‘immediately: that all-important border invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced,’
‘our precious little spot’
this is, in no particular order, what the astronauts reported when they gazed at Earth across the distance in that single, lucid moment. they did not seek to close the space between, but, simply, owning their longing for that distant blue dot, turned to one another and said:"is it inhabited?"
“is it inhabited?” they said to each other, and they laughed. and then they did not laugh. what came to their minds a hundred thousand miles and more into space- "half way to the moon,” as they put it- was the life on that little, lonely, floating planet; that tiny raft in the enormous, empty night:
“is it inhabited?" “is it inhabited?”
across that vast distance was presented all at once an aesthetic vision and a terrifying truth: that the Earth could never be possessed, that their longing for it would never be assuaged by acquisition or arrival, but upon their return would simply be relocated to a more permanent ventricle in the Heart. they had never longed for the Earth when they walked upon it: its firm soil, humble scents, raving flowers, and sensational Aprils; its wild irises, checkered tables and silverwear in autumn, its infants’ cries and anonymous performers. why now, suddenly, in this distance, did their Hearts turn inside out, and ache toward its pale, hazy blue thumbprint? and how was it they knew that their wanting wouldn’t stop when the ship landed, and their feet slipped back into socks and pavement?
it wasn’t a planet they desired. it wasn’t a planet at all.
Mahmoud Darwish, “Viewpoint,” trans. Fady Joudah, in The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, edited by Ilya Kaminsky.
to inhabit a planet is to get awfully used to it. the same may be said, unfortunately, little voice, for lovers, brand new shiny shoes, or pieces of strawberry cake. lack is an unfortunate central tenant of desire: it is difficult to want what you already have.
the word Eros- meaning: the heart sudden’s leaf-form, bark-furl, root-touch; meaning: to slide your leg beneath a lover’s before the day opens; meaning: the palm’s slow opening a sudden rough-woven soft-finned fruit; meaning: the body a violent, wild iris; meaning: I must have, I must have- has its roots in the πόθος / ἵμερος, or the Chantraine “inconnue”. in French, this is where we receive the word: the unknown.
ember-touched poet and scholar Anne Carson sings this in her brilliant essay Eros: The Bittersweet:
“The Greek word Eros denotes“‘want’, 'lack’, or 'desire for that which is missing’. The lover wants what he does not have. It is by definition impossible for him to have what he wants if, as soon as it is had, it is no longer wanting.”
- Anne Carson, Eros The Bittersweet.
and Eros, little voice, is not only a story of Love- even if love, as we know, is lovingly lovely in all kinds of love-giving ways.
there is, after all, Yuri Gagaran, the first man in space, whose name comes from the Russian gagara, or: flightless bird. Yuri, who did not have wings, and so desired them. Yuri, who, in that little aimless boat, turned his eyes to face the Earth and understood that in being so far from Earth, he was somehow, in his Desire, closer to Her than he had ever been when his feet were firm in Her soil. Yuri, who had wings, at last, and so longed for every ordinary thing he had ever known.
in science, we call this The Overview Effect: the cosmic and sudden falling-in-love-with-Earth-ing experienced by astronauts from the stars. in poetry, we call this growing wings.
Taken by NASA’s Messenger: set against the inky blackness of space, our Earth can be seen with the smaller Moon orbiting around it from a distance of around 114 million miles.
it is a very human thing to do, though, to believe that little voices only grow wings in storybooks. to feel that distance is a vast and complex certainty, beyond our control or comprehension. to believe that a little voice can only sit (presumably on something very sharp and uncomfortable), stare across the abyss, and sigh as the Heart slowly calcifies to stone with longing.
but Desire can be a kind of metamorphosis, little voice. let me tell you how.
it is simple: in lacking what we Love, we can learn to grow to fill the space in between. Yuri grew wings to reach the stars, and flowers in his Heart when he turned to see the Earth so very, very far.
and it is most mornings that we awaken to a day filled with Desire in all its damaging, piercing, suffocating glory. we long to be more, do more, love closer, hold firmer. little voice: we long for something, someone, someway, somewhere, sometime, always— this means what we Desire is far away, but this also means that there is Space to travel. it means that there is possibility: that we may reach for it, move toward it, extend ourselves to meet it.
the very word longing, after all, has its roots in this: in the Old English langian- to grow long- and in the German langen- to reach, to extend. longing is not a passive pursuit. it is active and electrified with Desire.
Desire. Desire. Desire:
from the Latin desiderare: “to await what the Stars will bring".
it is a lovely thing to grow long with desire. the space between ourselves and the desired object does not need to remain empty: if we let our little voices perhaps speak, we may just reach to meet it: slowly, as leaves are that turn toward the Sun, breaking into branches as the Heart, climbing distance’s taut ladder, moves toward the Sky- and, suddenly, you find you have left the Earth. and, suddenly, you, little voice, are that precious thing with wings.
in other words, little voice: the very place you suffer the tyranny of distance from what you love is the same place you care deeply: deeply enough, perhaps, to transform, and await what the Stars will bring.
Anna Fisher, the first mother in Space, Desiring, with the Stars in her eyes.
like all astronauts, Yuri somehow did not so much take off in flight from the Earth, but, in distancing himself from it in one leap toward the aria, somehow moved closer toward Her.
this is perhaps, little voice, why we hear so many tales of astronauts becoming Artists, lovers, and philosophers upon their return to our little pale dot. their Desire was a Star toward whom they first flew, and then returned with later.
learning is a very alive thing. as Carson writes, Eros is a “living breathing word that happens between two people when they talk. Change is essential to it, not because wisdom changes but because people do, and must.”
Eros is so often mistaken for the acquisition of something: perhaps, instead, the joy is in coming to meet it: to be running, breathlessly, but not yet arrived- hair wind-tangled, arms outstretched, grin catching on the breeze… this itself an act of sheer, panting delight: a suspension of raw, living hope.
as Socrates tells us, our very stories as little voices begin the moment Eros enters us, and we being to await for what the stars may bring.
the moment we long for our own Stars is, perhaps, the most important gesture of our lives:
“How you handle it is an index of the quality, wisdom and decorum of the things inside you. As you handle it you come into contact with what is inside you, in a sudden and startling way. You perceive what you are, what you lack, what you could be. What is this mode of perception, so different from ordinary perception that it is well described as madness?… A mood of knowledge floats out over your life. You seem to know what is real and what is not. Something is lifting you toward an understanding so complete and clear it makes you jubilant. This mood is no delusion, in Sokrates’ belief. It is a glance down into time, at realities you once knew, as staggeringly beautiful as the glance of your beloved.”
― Anne Carson, Eros The Bittersweet
in other words, little voice, a knowledge of what is lacking must also be an acknowledgement of possibility. and, as we know, possibility is only a stone’s throw away from Magic. this is the Star we move toward. Desire is only distance’s taut ladder— or, if you prefer flight: perhaps wings.
Desire does not need to be heavy. she can be wings.
it is perhaps the same, little voice, as the difference between hastily grasping a rose’s thorny stem and gingerly taking her in your palms.
it is true that nothing has the power to kidnaps our capacity for presence more cruelly than longing. but it is also true that longing is also the most powerful force we know: metamorphosis.
all Art is a longing for beauty. all Science is a longing for truth. all Love is a longing for life. all Play is longing for joy. all Kindness is longing for closeness.
as Star-seeker and wordsmith Susan Cain writes of longing in her novel Bittersweet: “Portuguese has the lovely word saudade; the vague, constant longing for something or someone beyond the horizon of reality–but we recognize it in our marrow, in the strata of the soul beyond the reach of words.”
“Distance lusts for you/
& crumbles us lean peons /
like sunneflowers, faces singed under the face that feedes /
their leaving–”
Devon Walker-Figueroa, from section 8 of “Australopitheca & Starman,” The American Poetry Review (vol. 48, no. 5, September /October 2019)
if we can look across Space without trying to shut it up, little voice, we can let go of control, and dream as humans and lovers. we can gaze upon the Earth like the perfect astronaut.
praise it:
praise your calm gaze upon the earth like the perfect astronaut : praise the gaze of the perfect witness: praise the precise gaze, the subtle gaze, the gaze well steeped in its marrow, praise it gone out of itself, praise it standing at the outer limit of its being, praise it in the eyes of everyone else, praise its acknowledging of longing: praise it knowing its longing well, befriending its longing, adoring its longing, praise its breathless movement toward the Stars.
i placed a Mahmoud Darwish poem in your pocket earlier in this letter. but that was not the end of that poem. no. in fact, the second one looked at the sun and said:
The difference between narcissus/
and a sunflower/
is a point of view: the first/
stares at his image in water/
and says, there is no I but I/
and the second looks/
at the sun and says I am/
what I worship./
And at night, difference shrinks/
and interpretation widens./
you are what you seek. you are what you worship. at night, let the difference shrink. your interpretation will widen. the stars will call you home.
love,
ars poetica.
A lot of us earth creatures would like to remain on this blue sphere than outside our planet. astronauts peer into the Otherness of space. it's how we perceive our knowledge in each other and the greater beyond. Eros makes sense now compared to desire. I once had someone close to whet her tears. it was a possessive relationship. it died like a neutron star. You seek what is elusive. It escapes your distance. Absence makes the heart heavy with familiarity. Cliches clang true like broken bells.