Muse

Yes, a poem. But with a caveat. I know I'm not Lord Byron...otherwise I'd be famous already. But I still enjoy a thought-provoking poem as much as the next literature-phile. So, in spite of the groans my meter elicits, I've penned a few lines on this mysterious subject.

Muse: what exactly is it? The concept has eluded me over my Fall semester, and I keep returning to it. At its most simplistic, muse is a gift from God that allows mere men a glimpse into the eternal. The eternal is there (in some form) at the creation of the painting, the composition, the blueprint, the poem; I think those that are doing the creating catch the brightest glimpse, but those who observe, listen, or read, can also sense it. It's a transfiguration (if I may use that term without offending anyone) of the ordinary, ugly, or hopeless into something greater than itself: a translucent medium through which one can almost see something beyond mortality and transience.

On Muse

Wingéd inspiration,
flighty, fickle, fabled,
carrying the breath of
art-love, beauty, madness.

Living on in famine,
war, destruction, ever
Phoenix, myth, a hope-dove,
rising from the ashes.

Rumi (13th c. Persian Poet)

"Heartsick, heartbroken--
to know love is to know pain.
What could be more common?
Even so, each broken heart
is so singular
that with it we probe the divine."