An endless sea and sky, two vast blue stretches of space, seemingly placid, soft cold winds blowing over a frozen surface, but with great welting flows and currents churning in a vast system invisible to mortal eyes. A single mind, composing a poem, focusing on getting the scansion right, innocent of the feelings it can evoke, trying to make a breakthrough in formalist art. An academy of philosophers, studying an innocuous conundrum. A distant star appears in the sky, a faint red glow. A glimmer of feeling seizes the poet as she considers a particularly beautiful line. A philosopher discovers a secret that could be scandalous. Should he publish it? He knows he should not. She knows she should not try to express the thought if it cannot fit in the metrical structure. The winds and currents struggle to keep their courses against the vicious sidereal influence of the crimson star - And yet is it not the nature of the philosopher to speak the scandalous truth, the poet to speak her mind? She dares not. She says, no worries, I am a formalist, but there's nothing wrong in at least seeing if I can match the meter to the thought... The philosopher in the night lights a candle and studies the forbidden truth. "I will never publish it, I will never tell anyone, but it is my nature to know what I can..." The crimson star grows bigger, unto a bloody moon. The tides cannot help themselves, pull towards it longingly. The Sortami in their clouds gaze at it and gasp, worshipping it as something holy, begging it to come closer. He whispers to a few confidants and they scream at him for his heresy as he screams his defenses. She is reminded of a love she knew, but never admitted. The red star blots out the sky, and the winds buffet and encircle it. Lightning crackles and fills the heavens and ocean surface with energy. She holds back hot years. He's dragged before a tribunal. The meteor picks up speed, superheating the air around it. Salty water pours down the surface of her rosy cheeks, and evaporates and explodes into a column of steam as the meteor crashes into it. It plunges deep, deep, deep into the vast abyssal recesses of the ocean, and the idea cuts deep, deep into the beliefs of the philosophers. The whole sky and ocean are a frenzy of activity, the academy's philosophy is destabilized, vast pressure systems are coming together, the poet enjambs words where they are forbidden to appear... And yet the star pulls back, and unsets from the horizon; the philosopher withdraws his claims, the poetess moves the word back where it belongs... and decides that no, she erred in taking it out, admitting to herself, she wants it there, she wants it buried even deeper within the an ungrammatical mess of affective syllables, some barely even bearing semantic sense, the tides rise up towards the star, begging to be incinerated, the whole academy is curious... The star plunges into the ocean, bigger and hotter than ever before, wrapping more and more words expressionistically around the scandalous name of the love she never knew, on her lips, heaving out like a wistful sigh, the philosophers all shouting implications, anticipating a new discovery, the four winds moaning - They cannot decide, the whole sea and sky are in chaos, the poet flips between the graphite and rubber and graphite and rubber, the stars sets and rises and sets and rises in the horizon, the committee submits, and withdraws, and submits, and withdraws the proposal - And submit it! The red sun sets fully into the tender lips that join heaven and ocean, between the lilting folds of the sea, burning hot water all around it, the poet wraps her verses tighter and tighter around the name of the lover, and the philosophers shout out - A new discovery! Another new discover! And another! The poet cries and shouts and sights, exclamations! appear on a line!!! and another!!! A vast column of plasma expands, and great tidal waves pound and pound and pound, as a great upswelling surges through sea and sky... And then all is calm and contentment, the poet sitting back from her megrim, pleased with her poem, treasuring it, the philosophers holding the new truth close to their hearts. The waves ripple in delight, the poet thinks of the next poem she shall write, something more expressive yet, the committee resolves that a life of the mind is not complete without some controversy, and the star lays snug in the sea, warming it throughout.
