The Magi

which i will not try to explain

“The Magi

Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.”

—William Butler Yeats

If we could see the world as it is & not our representations of it, the human suffering from vexations & torments, the cravings & the abhorrences, not in clusters of nameable types but the single inconceivable will, & the greater forces we never notice unless they impede our forward motion, would this make it possible to know where we are & what is going on? It would not excuse, it would not even explain. And i am not trying to find a vantage, what vantage is there but what i have. I am just stretching a hand beyond the fog of my own foolishness, or imagining that i could.