Of Mother and Muse...

Once upon a time I wrote a poem called "Of Man and Muse" inspired by and dedicated to the beautiful woman who hosted the muse for me.  Like all gifts of the muse the older that work becomes the more facets I find within it, things I didn't realize were there while wandering in the expansions of her tender spell that allowed the words to find their way to me. 

I've said it many times, how the relationship between man and muse is such a strange and powerful bond.  For years now I've sought to understand the nature of that relationship, and in all truth I've equally been conspiring against my own intention.  While I'd love to understand how it works, for curiosities sake, I equally desire the mystery to endure that her gift endure in equal measure, and so I find myself trying to explain and define one mystery in terms of other mysteries.  In the last few hours another facet of that mystery has presented itself, clarifying and at the same time adding even more depth.

In the poem is the line "…for fewer still are strong enough to stay within her heart and share the labor of her love delivering new art…"   Such a feminine thing to say, the labor of love, the delivery of art, such a feminine thing to say in a poem reflecting on the relationship between a man and his muse.  No man can know those things, not as a woman knows them.  Those words, those thoughts, they are the domain of woman and for a man who is a man women are the world's oldest and most delightful mystery.

Perhaps, perhaps it is that among the multi-layered nature of the muses' gift is this:  a taste, a sampling, of what a woman knows in becoming a mother.  No man can know the effort of her body, the pain she endures to bring new life into the world, we're not structured in that manner, it is beyond us, beyond our understanding, likely enough beyond our strength.  But that is only to speak to the physical, the matters of the flesh.  But what of the knowings of the heart, the soul? 

Perhaps in truth it is a form of parity, for woman conceives to her man, and brings forth their child.  But the man conceives to his muse, and brings forth art.  I wonder, yes I do wonder, what the muse feels as she reaches into the man to plant the seeds that will become art.  Does she know some semblance of what the man does, when the mating leaves his woman resting in his arms radiating that indescribable aura of her delight and her satisfaction, her inspiration and her resolve? 

Does it go both ways?  Is it in the basic nature of the muse's gift to use art to be a bridge of such understanding between the genders?

I don't know that my question will be heard, but I'll ask it anyway.  Alex, beautiful woman, my dear muse, what say you to these thoughts?  You are muse, and mother, wise in the ways of the hearts of men, you understand us at such depth and with such compassion as to host the Muses of legend for more than just I.  I know that, you know that.  In those days when you'd mother half of your little brood, let them delight in a nurture so subtle most had no clue the source of their delight, when in the same time you'd share with the other half that subtle humor of love filled and full filled watching the children at their play, when you'd bring to focus both halves of that highest art of all, parenthood, what did you sense in yourself, of and for yourself?  Is there an understanding to be found here, or am I simply projecting a hope?  If you can't answer my question then it will remain a question, and remain among the mysteries.