Prince Myshkin remembered that preceding his epileptic fits, he became filled with joy and hope. That second was inexpressible. Something opened before him: a wonderful light illuminated his soul.
—From The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The time has come to fathom the reasons for 0°
Kelvin, and the speeds at which sound and light

diverge, and the convergence of objects due to gravity,
and it’s all important. Ask temporal lobe epileptics

the meaning of each atom, every tusk unearthed
by the tide at dusk, and the transcendence of sand—

allow them to describe the door, and furthermore the eye
through which there is sight. This is the lyre, the music.

This is the metaphor and the euphoria and the rapture,
the stylus through the grooves of spinning records

remembering symphonies by touch, this is the next
step, the gyre winding upward, intertwined with the word

toward a cypress clenching cliffs with claw-like
roots, this is preparation for the wake, for the passing

of dead faces into life, and the glory of the chakras,
of fine linen and cherry-wood and children in the grove.