text by Liao Jen-I
What can be more inexplicable than having a quarrel with oneself?
Every-body is a magnetic field, belonging to the much larger magnetic field of the universe. And since we first of all belong to the earth, our two feet are attached to it by what people call "gravity". I don't understand. I only know that we are inseparable from this ball-like stuff. So we cannot live like the Little Prince who is able to fly as free as he wants, to live a life of writing poetry or even having a poetic life.
But I think the poet can fly. Being able to fly does not mean leaving here altogether, but just hovering in the air higher, and higher and higher, so as to see the shape of the earth, to behold one's own shadow. Like Peter Pan, the poet's shadow no longer belongs to him or her, but may engage in a wrestling with the self.
Right? My artist friends, don't you wrestle with your shadows all the time? Being part of the Muses' family, you are no better than poets; you are in love with the earth, and yet continuously in fight with it as well. A fight, yet you rather call it poetry, music, painting, and above all, art.
But, is it possible? Is it possible for you to fly as high and freely as the Little Prince? Just because you cannot always be a Little Prince, you have to land on the ground again, come back to where you were from, and be within the magnetic field. Of course, you are not free from the fight; after all you are an artist, your relationship with the magnetic field is AMBIGUOUS.
So ambiguous that even the magnetic writing is just a pretense and pretext. |
