————-—Plage Sauvage, Les Calanques
Here lies the reason why we choose to suffer—
to witness beauty only at the cost
of comfort, straining through the blazing limestone,
gaining no ground we do not soon give back,
necks bowed beneath the heat, and blinded by
a tyranny of azure, sea and sky,
glazed with the salt of body’s inner ocean,
compelled by tides of will no moon retracts—
for this: cold grace of waves at journey’s end,
the body, weary, washed into its bones,
triumphing in past strength now rendered weakness,
the greatest pleasure pain being extinguished,
theodicy sensorily advanced,
and senses thereby spiritually enhanced.
And here, lounged on a bed of sea moss, I,
who cannot love what I cannot transform,
envision Neptune, Triton, Oceanus
all as my very self haunting these cliffs:
a god uncanny in his depthless ease,
some idyll of the old Massalia.
And here, I grasp what comforting appeal
ideals of nymphs and satyrs, gods and fairies,
and other frisking spirits hold for us:
a Nature sentient, and, if not kind,
still sensual and mischievous and merry,
no doubt—but that is but the second point.
The first is the mere possibility
of leisure’s inexhaustibility.
What fantasy more wretched and more dear?
For we, though always seeking idle freedom,
would madden and be crushed by endless frolic.
Mortals are not designed to bask in joy,
though life be only borne by dreams of it.
And if nymphs are a lie, so too is heaven—
a heaven we ourselves could occupy.
For beings that could stand eternal bliss
would not have minds that we could call our own.
But then, heaven could be a nearer thing,
another world as lovely and as vain
as this one, vain and lovely as ourselves,
full of the unfulfillment we desire,
frigid as ocean, hot as solar fire.
Here lies the reason why we choose to suffer,
even as suffering leaves us no choice.
No god, I know well willing what must be
is all that I may know of paradise.
Elijah Perseus Blumov is the host of the poetry analysis podcast Versecraft and translations editor at Literary Matters. His work has appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Light, Think Journal, Alabama Literary Review, and other publications. He lives in Chicago.
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
