that damn Cupid
...who or which is the main topic of this site
in any season, let alone this one in the Northern hemisphere,
as the hormones stir a young man's fancy
and an old man's mind...
It's difficult I find, being a poet, and a scientist by training -
you want finality in the experimental results
but you love the constant mystery and beauty of the world,
never quite reached, never quite expressed.
Take this Cupid. Not the actual one,
but the head of Eros, Venus' very active young assistant
obviously under general orders
but with a very free remit under his blindfold -
or so it seems to us who don't get to see
the universal script if such there be.
He's one of the few 'archaic' treasures of Greek art
neatly plundered for the British Museum
in circumstances not to be enquired into -
'saved for civilisation' would be the spin -
but a winged messenger to this house
in no small way.
Which brings the whole matter of the non-material
into question. And which is what some scientists
find a challenge, others try hard to deny with cold facts.
To get to the point. The beloved point.
A reproduction of this little chap
in a mixture of polysomething and marble dust
sits on the table by the window here,
I'm looking at it now. Why do I know
that it's not just anyone's baby, baby,
but Eros himself? (Venus, note, is a mature woman,
Cupid just an innocent (ha!) child...)
The problem, O scientists,
the blessing, O poets,
is that his expression, his intention dammit,
is never the same two seconds together;
and, always two seconds ahead of what
I'm thinking now he's up to...
he's always up to something
and he knows I know it...
and don't exactly know what
and I'm two seconds after him, all the time...
For instance, right now
before I wrote this, I thought it would be good
to give him a wipe.
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poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
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