From Adam Zagajewski’s poem, The Self:
It is small and no more visible than a cricket
in August. It likes to dress up, to masquerade,
as all dwarves do. It lodges between
granite blocks, between serviceable
truths. It even fits under
a bandage, under adhesive. Neither custom officers
nor their beautiful dogs will find it. Between
hymns, between alliances, it hides itself.
Zagajewski’s portrayal of the furtive self has a parallel in D. W. Winnicott’s description of the artist: Continually torn between the urgent need to communicate, and the still more urgent need not to be found.
What makes that liminal zone between what is hidden and what is seen so compelling? The implicit finds residence in my consciousness in a manner so different from the explicit, much the way Wallace Stevens makes the distinction between “the beauty of inflections/Or the beauty of innuendoes/The blackbird whistling/Or just after.” My best experiences of the evocative and provocative are almost always served up implicitly.