A Study In Depth

It’s a pursuit. 
The  delight of finding
a puzzle piece that fits, 
only it’s all on the inside,
and, therefore, 
giddily ticklish. 

It comes down 
to the enrapture of connecting 
one thing to another 
until some array of receptors 
gets an answer to a question
that has plagued you in silence. 

It’s a tiny orgasm, this “Ahhh;” 
but not one others would notice 
like Harry and Sally. 

The feeling drives you 
until you cover the known universe. 
But there’s always something missing. 

You have to fish it out of the unknown, 
shaping something of yourself 
into a perfect configuration, 
dropping it into place 
with buttered ease 
while the chamber of the body 
resonates a canyon of satisfaction. 
Glory be to be so taken, 
so given. 

For that, I am a window
into other lifetimes, 
a mirror of recess, 
a ghost in the library, 
roaming uncollated stacks 
with pencilled ear and a handful 
of phone-a-friend cards. 

I’m your huckleberry.
Ask me anything. 

This poem was partly inspired by a lecture in the Great Courses on the hostorical conditions in England and the world that allowed the Beatles to flourish. I imagined the thrill Professor Michael Sheldon might have felt in the deep study needed to connect the dots and present a coherent history with his own twist to it. I felt a longing to be immersed in such a pursuit, led on by some quest to piece the puzzled pieces of a mystery together; to fil lout a picutre as only I might see it. This poem is an ode to intellectual stimulation, to the inner riches one finds when mining the depths of a topic or area of interest over time; to the passion of finding one clue after another and following leads down dead ends and darkened alleys until the missing piece appears, and then, magically, the moment when everything falls into place.

© Nick LeForce
All Rights Reserved

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