surrender

surrendering his most accessible, moving and enduring feelings
(long before) (i ever saw her)
(long before) (she ever saw him)
we sat in this Room in awe and exhilaration

he had killed himself in his studio, several times,
slicing open arteries in both arms and bleeding to death
(not depressed as some people say, just disinterested)

“can you see it?" says the man.
"i've never been here before," he says,
but she saw it in a matter of seconds

i look politely into the misty bloom of the
gigantic tear

i say something noncommittal
she says something noncommittal

i walk around staring into the colossal deep hole of
sombre colours, one after another
kneeling before a vast altarpiece that i choose to see

there is little to interrupt
just the bare walls of plaster, a few benches, and a swing,
there are doorways, but they don't lead anywhere,
their presence simply adds to the
rapture of this place, illuminated only by a
panel of openings that softens the moonlight

we are here on a pilgrimage to the unknown, again
but what is this journey about?
the Chapel was designed to hold the abstraction of their effusions
but it is also a sacred space, a place of reverence

the chapel holds a place for astonishing gifts
motivated by complicated reasons of their own -
which included their quest for happiness

collisions and dances of colour, they are bright like sunflowers,
with a lonely soul's anxious lust for life

they communicate isolation and unease in
their closed awareness, even as they delight the
eye with clouds of emotions

edges are misty, ambiguous, colorful, drowning you and absorbing you,
and yet it refuses to give you the satisfaction of a fixed meaning, a story, let alone a picture

they are, after all, so beautiful,
he was happy in his laughter, she was easy in her tender gaze