ERATO
Beth Bachman
Because of the struggle,
her arms and legs resisting,
you might take one look at the shape in the snow and say,
swan or angel,
something to do with the divine, the light,
always, bending back.
Or you might remember the way
a girl's tongue razes ice or catches the root of the word
muse: an open mouth,
a muzzle.
Perception is reality. Reality is not perception. Which is it? Must it be one instead of the other?
Our eyes lie to us. So do our hearts. We rush headlong to our destruction and negation thinking the mirror before us reflects love, fidelity, veracity, anything but our shadow. In the end the mirror reflects what we brushed away, that which we refused to see. We tell ourselves stories to make sense of our mistakes. We tell ourselves we will be careful next time, vigilant, eyes wide open.
We see what we need to see, hear only that which we can at the moment, accept only that which vibrates with our world view.
We see clear evidence of violence and search for metaphor and image to explain it slant: a rape scene is a lovely, if strange snow angel, as if only Jacob and the angel were come back to Earth and struggling against each other. Persephone is dragged to Hades by her robber groom and in consolation is made queen, her story muzzled in explanation and excuse. Blame the gods.
Blame our blindness on the muse, Erato, so lovely, so desired, she charms us into the vivid realm of our senses.
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