Solaris(1972)
––Andrei Tarkovsky
L e v i t a t i o n
(“30 Seconds of Weightlessness”)
Far from Earth,
a space station hovers
above a highly
intelligent sea. A moment
of weightlessness arrives.
Objects
from the man’s memory paradigms:
a candelabrum glides
into a chandelier, metal and crystal clink
and tingle, wicks burn
unhindered.
An open copy of Don Quixote drifts past center:
“Sleep makes the shepherd
equal to the king.
The one fault . . . it looks
like death.”
Side by side the lovers rise,
holding hands while twisting past
The Hunters in the Snow:
a 16th century winter, three huntsman followed
by their weary dogs; one man carries a meager fox.
For thirty weightless seconds the couple transcends
the confines of orbital life. Gravity restored,
their unity brief, the woman returns
as an unanswered question
from his past
a child alone
in the snow, burns twigs in a fire
the alien ocean observes and studies.
––John David West
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