Black Space

The most beautiful is the object
which does not exist....
neither blindness
nor death can take away the object
which does not exist.
mark the place
where stood the object
which does not exist
it will be a simple dirge
for the beautiful absence...


Now all space swells like an ocean
a hurricane beats
on the black sail..
now you have empty space
more beautiful than the object
more beautiful than the place it leaves
it is the pre-world
a white paradise
of all possibilities
you may enter there
cry out vertical-horizontal
perpendicular lightning strikes the naked horizon....


Obey the counsels
of the inner eye
do not yield
to murmurs mutterings smackings
it is the uncreated world
crowding before the gates of your canvas
obey the counsels of the inner eye
admit no-one
extract
from the shadows of the object
which does not exist
from polar space
from the stern reveries of the inner eye
a chair.
beautiful and useless
like a cathedral in the wilderness.

Place on the chair a crumpled tablecloth
add to the idea of order
the idea of adventure
let it be a confession of faith
before the vertical struggling with the horizontal
let it be quieter than angels
prouder than kings
more substantial than a whale
let it have the face of lost things.
we ask reveal o chair
the depths of the inner eye
the iris of necessity
the pupil of death.

---Z.Herbert.

Black is the place of non-manifestation, the place prior to manifestation; the black space is empty, the object before the object*, Holy of Holies, the Ka'ba.
*Jabes:

God is not God. God is not God. God is not God. He is. He is before the sign that signals him. Before designation. He is the void before the void, thought before thought; thus also the unthought before the unthought-as if there were a nothing before the nothing. He is the cry before the cry, the trembling before the trembling.

He is the night without night , the day without day. The look before the look, the listening before the listening. He is the air before breathing..Not yet wind, but light air, indifferent in its primitive infinity.