In my youth, I met a man who, in his own youth, had served the German Reich. From him, I borrowed the Instrument.
An atom relaxes,
its life-spark briefly flashes,
within the eye that stares unfocused,
into the void, one so devoid,
that the instrument it holds,
can be naught but black:
an iron cave from whose core,
one mouth opens west,
the other, to the south.
From the south,
blasts a shaft of light,
fierce, square, white,
a panchromatic maelstrom,
flow of molten aether,
from the electric furnace,
a this-worldly Svartalfheim—
the dwarven forge—
heedless, blazing, blinding,
or would be—
were it not concealed,
within the kiss
of the apertures’ coupling.
To the west, it emerges,
from the cave careening,
purified, rarified, polarized,
a wave sieved, spraying particles sifted:
wool without flax,
wheat without chaff,
an eldritch hue,
not blue, nor green,
perhaps between,
no name, unnamable,
too refined for names,
numbers only:
width of band,
length of wave—
a glow, divine, sublime,
simple,
beautiful.
Transcendent.
The eye gapes.
An idiot grin.