Matter of the heart

An inchoate voice spills out of the depths of me. I want you to feel it. It is too low pitched for human ear hearing. It rumbles between ground and air like an incipient storm. There is nothing visible. I want it to matter to you.

My desire for your encounter with this ultimately palpable yet visually unyielding experience nags at me until I feel the necessity for the hunt. There is a capturing to be accomplished. I cannot rest until pins hold wings back, permanently open, jeering at the folly of flight. I need a trophy of scales or feathers or fur on the wall.

Taxidermy models matter. I find it odd that taxidermy comes from Greek words that mean "moving skin." I am not feeling any movement here, not even the inescapable movement of death.

What's the matter? Please don't be squeamish. The cost may be high and the idea may be jarring. But if something matters, result is created. Product has emerged. There is something to be grasped as substantial, something that will not melt, or escape, or evaporate.

We find terribly compelling the newly discovered process of plastination. In this process the dead human body's water and fat are replaced by plastics. Initially pliable forms result. But these ultimately become stable, dry, and odorless human figures, unyielding to the temptation of unfaithfulness. This is ultimate dependability without question. Even the plebian becomes the immutable Egyptian pharaoh in an undisturbed sacred space.

This is so different from the moving visions of sugar plums that used to be the fancy of childish dreams. But sugar plums cannot be hung on walls. And these models are the stuff of wall hanging.

Perhaps this is too harsh. I think I need to give all models the benefit of the best possible reading. Perhaps these models function to rescue walls from anonymity and boredom. Then their fondest hope is not to be other bricks in the wall, but fodder for the emergence of doors in the walls that separate us. These models long to morph into possible portals, into magical telephone booths or closets or gardens. They long to establish permanent entrance into lands that promise resolution of all loss, unhappiness, and separation.

I think that I am addicted to doors. And addiction matters. Addiction forces into existence even that which doesn't exist. In the psychotic delirium of necessity doors open that do not exist, and ecstasy is born. Who wants to question this experience? What purpose would that questioning serve?

I hope it is not merely abstract honor that prompts my noble questioning. This questioning leads to a rising from the sleep of delirium. No matter how pleasant it is to stay asleep, waking must matter. I hope that this honorable waking matters into a skin that really moves beyond the barren formulas of death and endlessly mindless repetition. I hope to be a Leda who gives affirmative answer to William Butler Yeats' poetic query. I hope to put on the knowledge and power of the swan god before the indifferent beak can let me drop. Then, as the god, what choice will matter?

— Rx is the FloridaW eekly muse w ho hopes t o inspir e pr ofound mu tiny in all those who care to read. Our Rx ma y be wearing a p irate cloak of in visibility, but emanating fr om within this shado w is hope that readers will feel free to respond. Who kno ws: You ma y e ven inspir e the muse. Make contact if you dare.