The ones we love are often the ones who elude us the most, both spiritually and emotionally. I have written before about the difficulty in communicating with people and even those you love, whether that be your wife, siblings, or your children. I think communication as a form of the human condition is a troubling matter, especially when you consider all of those times you know you could solve a problem if you just said the right thing, but you hold back regardless.
The “magic” of this communication hurdle should be apparent in that we have to ostensibly cast a spell to execute a perfect exchange of dialogue. No stuttering, no obfuscation, no misused words. This is not an easy task.
In today’s poem, Eunice Tietjens talks about magic in an intimate sense, and I think in some ways she is talking about somebody she wants to reach out to who cannot hear what she has to say. This poem is relevant because I doubt many of us can tell what magic is (communication or whatever), even if it were to land right in front of us.
“Magic” by Eunice Tietjens
Who can tell what magic is?
Or in what covert does she lie?
Under what brown leaves or green
Shines her startled eye?
_
Though we beat the woods of dream,
Lure and stalk her as we will,
She sits close, she nestles warm,
She eludes us still.
_
I have never seen her clear
Nor known from what deep shade she slips,
Yet I have felt her sudden wings
Brush against my lips.
_
Works Cited
Tietjens, Eunice. “Requiem for a Faun by Eunice Tietjens | Magic By… | Poetry Magazine.” Poetry Magazine, 7 Sept. 2021, poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=18430.
