They say that life's a carousel
Spinning fast, you've got to ride it well
The world is full of kings and queens
Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams
Its heaven and hell...
-Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell
Many wiser than I have told me numerous times that life is way too short to miss something that is good and/or good for you. Trouble is, as I have expressed in the Placid Lake entry that when one makes a decision to go one way or another that the ripples have a tendency to mar what you may consider to be calm. I re-read that entry just now and the urge to explain the whole damn thing to everyone took hold of me.
Poetry at its core is very difficult to interpret. In fact, in any of my literature classes, I usually sucked at it. The main reason is poetry, besides the Hallmark variety, is very closely tied to the author. For an example, a person can write a wonderful poem about matches and it is interpreted as a warning to be very careful in life. Yes you will have a momentary high as you burn with life, but if you go at it too fast, you will burn out your desires and they become smoke. Pretty heavy right? However, if you ask the author of the so-named match poem, he/she just might say, "What are you talking about? I just like writing about matches." It's like I said, very difficult to interpret but that does not stop people from trying to get inside the author's skull and attempt to find a pearl of wisdom.
Ok, enough stalling, here I go and please bear with me. Placid lakes to me are the ultimate in calm for the simple reason that there are places on earth that can contain water without it spilling it all over the place. Below the surface, the water is teeming with life and this life is always in motion. The animal life is letting each other know who is predator and who is prey. The water itself is in motion either coming into or going out of the lake. So even with all of this hubbub, on the surface, it is as calm as it can be. I can relate, or at least try to. To me, it is okay to have all of this going inside of one's mind/body and still be at peace with one's self. The birds reflecting on its surface represented the action of flight; running away from one's fears. We humans have many different types of fears but the strongest deal with either survival or matters of the heart. While it is typically best when faced with mortal danger to flee, there are times when one must stand and face it.
So the man is now looking around for a stone and the one he comes across is cold, hard and heavy. At this point it might be clear what the stone itself represents, but for now we only know that apparently he was looking for this particular stone. Even more, we know that he wants to cast it into the lake to see what happens. How hard he wants to cast away this particular stone is illustrated by the strength he put behind the throw. Then, we find out that this might be a matter of the heart for the chest muscles are now affected. He heard the splash without seeing it, and I really can't tell you the meaning behind that, it just sounded cool.
He watches the effects of the stone splashing into the lake and now ignores the pain that the throw has caused. The fear of using his heart as part of his physical being, an arm in this case, are now revealed as being expelled. I know it might be a bit of a reach but I will invoke poetic license here and expostulate the the stone was the heart of old, heavy and cold. The pain he felt was that of casting out that which was sealed off and calcified; impervious to fear or hurt. For the ripples are symmetric and move out in geometrical beauty. For although he has cast out the stone in his heart, he realizes that there are still ripples to face and at that moment in time, he is okay with that for the lake returns to its pristine calmness. Instead of running around and whooping it up like a madman, he sits on the bank and gazes, not contemplates or curses, that one decision and smiles to himself.
Like I said, poetry is abstract at best. I could have ruined the whole thing right there and just said, "I wrote this thing about an old man who threw out his arm at some stupid lake." Although, I would have been technically correct since it is my prose, it would not have been what was behind the words. To answer the next question, does this have anything to do with how I am feeling right now? Well, to that I will conjure the right of nom deplume and simply state, "After all, poetry is a matter of interpretation..." and grin to myself.
-WTS
