For as long as I can remember, response to outside stimuli has been more physiological than intellectual for me. Our bodies absorb the world, stimulus through the senses, that pings emotion, to give us a primitive response. Music does the same thing, obviously, though that may be more immediate than an image or a quietly spoken phrase. There is a haunting feeling to this image. A distance, distraction, yet at the same time immediacy. It seems old, antique, like the world, though it is not. I thought of Leonard Cohen's song "If It Be Your Will."
That a voice be trueFrom this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
He sings about a broken hill. Metaphorically. Mythically? What does it represent, this hill, in our subconscious mind? I also think of Anthony Hecht's poem "A Hill" that, too, evokes something deep within the unconscious self. These images, obtuse places, snapshots, moments out of our lives that run together arbitrarily, memories, collide and make meaning or not. Nonetheless I feel it deeply. It enters my body like the hands of a psychic surgeon, not to remove disease but to implant a trinket, a charm or talisman, an impression, a memory that I will take to the grave.
