XXIV
“But since the end of all poetic art
Is the improvement of the reader’s mind
(Or so we’re told), my verses for their part
Shall point the usual moral of their kind:
This life’s a crazy journey, and our heart
May stumble, but two mighty powers, we’ll find,
Can move the world and help us as we go:
To Duty much, to Love far more we owe.“
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [The Diary]
Naomi, this image is so visually stunning with its roses in soft teal and the soft grays, I have been taken with its unearthly beauty for several days, not wanting to translate into words. Yet your citation of Goethe’s poem invites me back into the realm of verbal beauty, and you once again chart the place where these two realms meet.
The twinned, reflected image is like a Rorschach, ready to receive the impressions I might project, but delimited by Duty and Love, Love having the greater share. Duty and Love are shown to be two sides of the same power of the Feminine arising as flower faeries from the roses–or so I am imagining. These “two mighty powers” may sometimes show their faces with a surprising delicacy and reticence when one searches for them within. But their strength makes this ultimately a very comforting image to contemplate.
~lucy
Thank you, Lucy, for taking my work here into the realm of your most beautiful verbal universe! You have such a gift for translating art into words and infusing it with a verbal texture of meanings. Forever grateful for this new level of existence you add to my art, a dimension I could never give it. Thank you so very much for enriching and delighting my work on the first day of this year…with your mind!
~naomi
an incredible image.