The softness of his hand caressed her skin. It was soft, like pressing your fingers against moisturized silk. She lifted him in the air and said, “My son! You are so beautiful.”
Have you ever thought that we can’t describe how soft is soft, without making reference to another object. We tend to make comparisons. We have touched the softness and tenderness of a baby’s hand but we can’t explain what kind of softness is that; unless we metaphorically relate it to another object that we have touched too. Maybe this is poetry. A fair maiden is akin to being white as snow. A voluptuous lady runs wild like a red hot flame. These could be ideas that have been fed to us since we are children. The books that we read, stories that we hear, conversations that we pick up from others, observations that we made about man and nature and movies that we watch, all influence our thoughts.
I think when we see a person or an object like a tree, we actually don’t see a tree or for that matter, the person. We see memories, ideas and metaphors that we have inherited. We see a tree and a name comes to mind. “Oh! It is an oak tree.” Perhaps it could stir a bad memory of crashing one’s car into a tree. It may invoke a feeling of a long lost first love whereby underneath the shades of the tree, it was a romantic hideaway for two.
When we see a face, we immediately label it. “She looks motherly. She reminds me of a bulldog. I hate him. He resembles my dad. Oh my god! I thought he was Brad Pitt!”
The mind is constantly attaching values, meanings and labels to everything and everyone because we are trained this way. We must have an answer to all questions. I suspect it is partly instigated by our desire for certainty and security. What we don’t know and can’t understand, must be bad. If we can’t find a meaning and reason within our very own private vocabulary as to why the man across the street performs his prayer in a particular way, more so when our limited understanding of spirituality dictates that there is only one version of god, we label our estranged neighbour evil.
The problem is that we always make comparisons and that is not the intention of poetry and religion. When a poet writes “The enchanting maiden is white as snow”, he means that the essence of the woman and the snow is the same; pure and innocent. It is a feeling that calls from the heart not a point of reference to be intellectualized. It means she is the snow and the snow is her. We must go beyond the original meaning of the words. Just like when we read any suggested divine and holy texts, we must go beyond the words and seek its true fundamental nature.
When a poet writes, he does not write about a woman that reminds him of snow. Neither is he comparing a woman to the snow nor is he saying that the touch of a new born baby is like touching silk. What he wishes to express is that the woman and the snow are the same. The baby and the silk are the same. Touching both makes him happy. Because when you compare, one is always better than the other. The woman is better than the snow. If you compare Tom and Harry, one is better than the other even when the mouth does not say it; the action of judging betrays all hidden agenda.
To accept a person and an object for what they are is the most difficult task ever to reach mankind. When it is to come naturally it has mutated in to a laborious chore. Maybe we are not aware that we are all connected to the same roots; well, perhaps the same consciousness.
