ALAN NORDSTROM'S BLOG

2012-01-31T04:33:00.001-08:00

 AFTERWORD

 Gentle Reader,

What you’ll find below is an upside-down anthology of sorts: a journal of my frequent nightly musings from January 2008 till now, in reverse order. 

Much of what I write here is verse in traditional rhymed iambic pentameters, old fashioned in form but contemporary in topics and idiom. It asks to be read aloud so that the effects of rhyme and meter may be felt. 

Sometimes I write brief prose essays, but even my verses are essays, or attempts, pursuing a line of thought to some conclusion, though more sonorously than those in prose: discursive verses, I call them.

 In either case, you’re the reader over my shoulder as I write, which makes my writing different than when I have no audience in mind but only a vague urge to express. So I thank you for whatever attention you give my words and thoughts and feelings because you might so easily attend to something else, and you soon will. 

To beguile you to linger longer, though, I’ve coupled most of my compositions with a photo or image I’ve taken or borrowed, which often corresponds with my words of that day.

Thank you for visiting here. I hope you enjoy your stay and are moved to come back soon.

—Alan Nordstrom

2012-01-31T04:24:00.000-08:00

THE ROLLINS COLLEGE FRONTIER

The particular “frontier” I am interested in exploring with you in this essay is the frontier of the liberal education that a college like Rollins purports to offer you.

No doubt there were many other reasons that led you to choose Rollins besides its “liberal arts and sciences curriculum,” for instance: its size, its location, its beautiful campus and its strong reputation, or perhaps the recommendation of Rollins graduates you may know. In general, it probably seemed to you a happy place to spend four or so years earning an AB degree.

Those are good reasons, but not the most important reason educationally. Though it may seem presumptuous to say so, Rollins aims essentially to change your mind, to liberate it from ignorance and fallacy, to open it to new vistas of possibility, and to confirm you in your commitment to higher purposes and aspirations than you had when you came: being better prepared to serve the world with your expanded knowledge and refined thinking.

As a result of your Rollins liberal education, which is not thrust upon you but earned by your studious commitment and effort, you should be more oriented and enabled to make a positive difference in the world after you graduate. You will have more to contribute to the beneficial human enterprise, not simply to get a better job.

A liberal education is not explicitly vocational or professional training; rather, it is the development of intellect and sensibility along with specific skills, and the acquisition of general and specialized knowledge appropriate to a well-educated person. To be at least acquainted with disciplines in the humanities, the arts, the sciences and social sciences, and to develop a life-long interest in such subjects is one mark of a liberally educated person.

Your desire not to be ignorant and to become a capable, resourceful, life-long learner should lead you to a college like Rollins. You recognize that you may enjoy here an immense privilege as an undergraduate: the leisure to study, explore, develop abilities, and find guidance and encouragement in your intellectual growth and mastery.

Most important should be the commitment you make here to grow not merely more knowledgeable and skillful, but wiser: more insightful into what is of real value to yourself and others, and more determined to bring such value into the world to improve it—the world of the family, the community, the government, the ecosystem, the future. Your liberal education should orient you to recognize the beautiful possibilities of a flourishing life on a flourishing planet, and to commit yourself to making it so.

Lift your sights to that vision of why you are here.

2012-01-30T03:42:00.000-08:00

CUT SHORT

     That “every fair from fair sometime declines,”
     As Shakespeare says of youthful beauty blown,
     All may well see when Old Age undermines
     That loveliness we only briefly own:
      Our youth’s a flower that stays a little hour,
          Is briefly sweet before it turns to sour.

2012-01-29T03:37:00.000-08:00

LESSONS

What is a doggie for if not to teach
you better how to love and care, to give
you opportunities to make a crea-
ture glad, while you become more sensitive?

Who’s taming whom may be in question here:
you both come wild into this world of woe
and face the same great adversary, fear,
yet both can grow in love before you go.

Thus man’s best friend may prove his greatest guide
and easiest teacher of what’s best to learn
since all those years of walking side by side
breed mutual affectionate concern—

a lesson that extends to man and wife
and all to all: to live a loving life.

2012-01-28T04:13:00.001-08:00

IMAGINATION

   Imagination! What a power we own
   To bring to mind a picture of some thing
   Our eyes can’t see, a private twilight zone
   Of fantasy where sometimes angels sing
   And sometimes devils lurk or monsters prowl
   But also new ideas formulate:
   Just when you’re ready to throw in the towel,
   A fresh invention comes in view that’s great.
   Do other creatures have such visionary
   Capacity as we? Can they foresee,
   Devise, invent or in their minds’ eye carry
   The picture of a thing that’s yet to be?
        Imagination is a human trait
    That makes us both so monstrous and so great.

2012-01-26T04:44:00.000-08:00

HOWARD NEMEROV, R.I.P.

     I met the poet Howard Nemerov
     At the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
     He brooked no fools and readily would scoff
     At tyro poets, incompetent upstarts.
     So three days in, our seminar had lost
     A quarter of the students who had come
     Who couldn’t bear the way he would accost
     And criticize their verse, leaving them dumb.
     Not to excuse the man, but to explain:
     He was an alcoholic and near death
     And maybe thought to spare some fools the pain
     Of fruitless hope and let them save their breath,
   Turning their efforts to more useful things
   Than turning verses and the pain that brings.

2012-01-23T03:44:00.000-08:00

THE QUEENS’ ROUTINES

     Our dogs are comfortable in their routines,
     Which pattern out each day predictably;
     We let them rule our house like little queens,
     Commanding treats and walks imperiously.

     “You see I’m on my back—it’s time to rub
     My tummy while I wriggle with delight,
     And if you’d rather not hear our hubbub,
     Then let us in the yard. We have that right!

     “But now it’s time to walk, as you can tell
     Because I’m lying here, chin on my paws,
     And staring in your face, casting a spell,
     An evil one perhaps—you know our laws!”

So we comply, behaving like good minions,
      Because we love to court their high opinions.

2012-01-22T04:33:00.000-08:00

TAKE YOU A COURSE

     I teach those subjects that I most enjoy—
     What better reason could there be to teach,
     Or how much better could we both employ
     Our time than being in our groove or niche?

     Although some subjects may be difficult
     And studied only for necessity,
     You know those studies have the best result
     That resonate with one’s true sympathy.

     So, if you find yourself not in accord
     With what I’m offering in this term’s course,
     And you can see no prospect of reward
     In its pursuit, but only sad remorse,

Then haste thee to a happier enterprise,
For only following love may you grow wise.

2012-01-19T04:31:00.000-08:00

DON’T GO THERE!

     Well versed about the art of sonnetry,
     He set about to write another one,
     Not one about romantic fantasy,
     Since that old topic has been overdone,

     But, for a change, a song that sings of hate
     Or disillusionment or something that
     Reveals the cruel vicissitudes of fate,
     Something unusual, not trite or pat.

     Instead, he found himself in an old groove—
     Writing a poem about the process of
     Writing a poem, but not the sort to move
     An auditor to like, much less to love.

      Too introspective and too self-obsessed,
    Such verses leave their audience distressed.

2012-01-13T03:11:00.001-08:00

A RUBRIC FOR LIBERAL EDUCATION

There are colleges and college courses of many kinds, but those colleges that aim to teach a curriculum of “liberal arts and sciences” and to provide students with a “liberal education” have a higher mandate than providing only higher-level and more challenging academic instruction than is offered in schools of secondary education.

The distinguishing feature of such colleges is implied in the word liberal, which indicates the greater freedom of mind promised by such programs, not just freedom from particular kinds of ignorance, but freedom from narrow-mindedness and prejudice—a freedom gained through skills of critical thinking and the growing realization of what is of value to oneself and others—which is wisdom.

Therefore, any course or program of study in a college of liberal arts and sciences ought to be justifiable not merely by the information it purveys, but by the mentally formative effects it produces in students, moving them further in their development of informed critical and appreciative thinking in the service of making valuable choices.

For example, in my own discipline of literary study, the first determination is to choose literary works worthy of study, exemplary writings illustrative of admirable artistic skills, intellectual cogency, and affective sensibility. To grow in appreciation of such achievements is to grow more discerning, to grow wiser in ways that enrich lives.

Any other course in any other discipline in a liberal arts and sciences program should be similarly justifiable in terms of how it develops more appreciative, discerning, wiser minds in students. It should be taught by faculty who practice such appreciation, discernment and wisdom in their own academic activities, and who can recognize and cultivate it in their students.

2012-01-11T04:13:00.000-08:00

ÉLAN VITAL

   That conscious spark, that flame—Élan Vital,
   Igniting into life and breath and being,
   That will at first excite and then appall
   When Death arrives, from which no flame is fleeing:
   That vital essence is a mystery,
   A marvel in this universe of dust—
   That anything alive could come to be
   May lead us to believe and even trust
   That something wonderful, some guiding force
   And not mere randomness is our true source.

2012-01-10T03:50:00.000-08:00

THE HIGHER LAW

     Although my natural struggle’s to survive,
     I have a duty to do more than live;
     We humans, as all creatures, seek to thrive,
     And to that enterprise I aim to give.

     There’s more than looking out for number one:
     Our ecosystem’s a community,
     Not an arena where a foe’s outdone
     But, rightly seen, a place of harmony.

     The larger purpose calling on our race
     Is ultimately not to demonstrate
     Our power to subdue, but show the grace
     Of love to others, overcoming hate.

    Cooperation and collusion are
    The only reasons we have come this far.

2012-01-07T23:21:00.000-08:00

IMAGINATION AND REASON

     It takes a word, a phrase, to light the fuse
     That starts a verse and summons up the Muse,
     And then the form keeps offering new cues,
     Presenting fresh material to choose;

     But still it is the intellect that glues
     The pieces random inspiration strews,
     For while Imagination may enthuse,
     It’s Reason that true poets finally use.

2012-01-06T00:39:00.000-08:00

MUSING

     Most mornings, something nudges me from bed
     An hour or two before the light of dawn,
     And then, as if by some allurement drawn,
     Down to my writing chair I’m gently led.

     As if from some subconscious source I’m fed
     A pregnant word or phrase that serves to spawn
     A couplet or a stanza—then it’s gone,
     And what came easily 's now work instead.

     But once momentum builds, I’m on my way
     And, like a kid first learning how to bike,
     I grow more confident as I proceed
     Keeping my balance, trying not to stray—
     At last, I’m sure the proper word will strike,
     And what was fancy will turn fact indeed.

2012-01-05T01:52:00.001-08:00

SUPRACONSCIOUS

Suppose that human brains are capable
(And that includes the heart as part of brain)
Of rising to a consciousness that’s full
Of cosmic wisdom that defines what’s sane.

Call this a Supraconsciousness which shows
What saints and sages long ago have seen,
What prayer and meditation may disclose
When agitated minds have grown serene.

Supposing this, then learn how to receive
Transmissions of such wisdom from above,
Finding what agonies it can relieve,
And realize such insight comes from Love.

Somewhere there is a universal source
That teaches wandering souls to keep on course.

2012-01-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

ON THE BEAM

     At times when my roiled brain becomes serene,
     I may achieve a state of clarity
     In which intuitive insight grows keen,
     As if it were a beacon beckoning me,

     And then I sense the guidance of that beam
     Aiming to lead my wayward footsteps home
     While causing my dull intellect to gleam,
     And in this state sometimes arrives a poem.

     But now I sense more benefit awaits
     Than merely turning verses in the night:
     That staying on this vital beam creates
     A life replete with wisdom and delight.

          To skeptic souls such visions merely seem,
          Unable as they are to live a dream.

2012-01-01T05:21:00.000-08:00

PRESTO!

               While many things I know are so,
               Some other things I just believe
               That at the time I can’t perceive—
               Because believing makes them so.

2011-12-31T04:38:00.000-08:00

SIGNIFICANCE

     Before I die I hope to signify
     That how I’ve used my mind was for the best,
     That I’ve asked not just who and how but why,
     And my profound inquiries have been blessed:

     Why are we here, and why have we the power
     Of conscious intellect to comprehend
     The universe and savor every flower,
     Knowing our beginning and our end?

     No other earthly creature has such scope
   Of aptitude and possibility,
     And through our history we’ve learned to grope
     And grasp at meaning in this mystery.

    If I, before my end, could fathom this,
    I’d happily descend in death’s abyss.

2011-12-30T00:47:00.000-08:00

MOTHER UNIVERSE

for Duane Elgin

Suppose, I say, though don’t believe outright,
What has not yet been proven beyond doubt
But what seems true to mystical insight,
From which, sometimes, the seeds of knowledge
     sprout—

Suppose, then, that the Kosmos is informed
By a mysterious intelligence
From which proceeds the energy that swarmed
Out of a black hole, gradually growing dense.

Thus random accident no longer must
Absurdly seem the cause of everything,
But rather some incentive more robust,
A consciousness of which old sages sing:

     Plotinus, say, who saw all life embraced
     By Mother Universe, thus blessed and graced.*

* “The universe is a single living being embracing all living beings without.” —Plotinus

2011-12-29T04:29:00.000-08:00

THE LIVING UNIVERSE II

for Duane Elgin

     What difference does it make if we decide
     The universe is living after all,
     A thesis that materialists deride
     Who find us insignificantly small?

If we’re more than a random accident

     That time and chance have blindly stumbled on
     But rather have evolved through an intent,
     We’ve reason to be more than woebegone:

     We’ve cause to think causation comes from mind,
     That intellect pervades the universe,
     And all we see’s implicitly designed,
     Unfolding for the better, not the worse.

    To know all this takes more than mere belief,
    Though gnostic intuition heals our grief.

2011-12-29T04:20:00.000-08:00

WHEAT AND CHAFF

       What’s wheat is when I keep the beat
       And when my rhyme scheme’s deft and neat,
       When form and matter coincide
       And you find nothing to deride.

       What’s chaff is what provokes a laugh
   But inadvertently—a gaffe
       That makes you wonder if I’m daft
       Or just inept.

2011-12-28T03:29:00.000-08:00

COSMOLOGY

for Duane Elgin

The Cosmos is the universe conceived
As orderly, coherent and alive,
Which is a concept formerly believed
That some today are aiming to revive.

Despite materialists who apprehend
A world reduced to mass and energy,
Inspired cosmologists will yet contend
That Spirit gives it all vivacity,

That consciousness comes first, intelligence
Informing all that manifests as real,
For how could merely matter summon sense
Or all this vital panoply reveal?

Though Newton taught us how to calculate,
There’s more displayed to those who meditate.

2011-12-27T02:32:00.000-08:00

THE SKYWATCHER

for Richard Tarnas

     He felt his life should be a holy quest
     Devoted to the highest and the best,
     Though not vicariously through literature
     But deeds of his own doing that endure.

     What inroads could he take that might advance
     Humanity and break the evil trance
     That keeps us blindly spellbound with its curse
     Unapt to understand the universe?

     Could he discover how to apprehend
     The fateful ways that cosmic forces tend,
     Divine the very nature of the schemes
     By which realities emerge from dreams,

          Then he’d achieve the highest human aim
          Deserving of the most enduring fame.

2011-12-26T04:05:00.001-08:00

RECKONING

     Were it pronounced I was about to die,
     As someday certainly will be the case
     (And sooner seems more sure than by and by),
     I would not wish to go and leave no trace.

     To leave instead the highest and the best
     Of all it is that I still have to give—
     My whole potentiality expressed—
     Is how I ardently intend to live.

     But since it may be that this very day
   Is destined for my last, then I must make
     The best of all I do, which is to say
     This sonnet’s written for the future’s sake

      Enunciating you as well as I
    Both aim to be immortal though we die.

2011-12-25T03:02:00.000-08:00

SPIRIT

     If Spirit is the breath that animates
     Our lives, enthusing us with consciousness,
     Then pray to be inspired, open the gates
     To heavenly winds that purify and bless,

     For otherwise we’re loveless and forlorn,
     Flat, desiccated, hollow, bitter, bleak;
     Seek rather to be salvaged and reborn—
     Ascend to Holiness’ transcendent peak

     For there the winds of grace are ever blowing
     To fill your soul with tenderness and bliss
     And keep the fires of love forever glowing
     Since what is living for, if not for this?

This Holy Spirit fills the universe—
Forgetting which incurs a woeful curse.

2011-12-24T04:53:00.001-08:00

READING THE OLD MASTERS

Come read with me this term and you shall hear
The marvelous language of old poets who,
Like Chaucer, Sydney, Spenser and Shakespeare,
Have for their genius earned so much ado.

Hear how they’ve mastered the pentameter
And met the challenge of complex rhyme schemes;
Learn not to let their subtleties deter
You from the gold that in their verses gleams.

While rich in diction, subtle in its wit
And eminent in sonorous effect,
Their poetry shows what is requisite
For earning all posterity’s respect.

Such perfect harmony of sound and sense
Only eternal Fame can recompense.

2011-12-23T04:40:00.001-08:00

ELAN VITAL

for Copthorne Macdonald
1936-2011

    What is it that inspires and expires,
   That animates what’s otherwise inert,
     The vital spark of all organic fires
     That raises living beings from mere dirt?

     Or is it rather that the dirt’s alive,
     That matter is but spirit’s artifact,
     That spirit matters and imparts the drive
     Toward higher consciousness and force to act?

     That matter’s first is scientism’s view,
     Which Newton’s laws intend to comprehend:
     There is no ghost in this machine, and you
     Are but an accident that time will end.

    Suppose instead that spirit underlies
    All being everywhere and never dies.

2011-12-22T04:30:00.001-08:00

FORTUITY

   A sonnet with its fourteen lines reflects
   The fourteen waking hours of one’s day,
   The unexpected ways that life connects
   Events, showing the mind at work and play.

   Who knows, when you awake and day begins,
   How chance may change the course of what you’ve
       planned,
   How what intention loses, Fortune wins
   In ways that only Fate can understand.

   So is it when you set out on the track
   A sonnet takes, treading iambically,
   But groping, since the way ahead is black,
   For only by proceeding can you see.

      A sonnet simulates the day’s surprises
      By finding more than purpose realizes.

2011-12-21T04:38:00.000-08:00

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS II

   Why not suppose that thought is everywhere,
   Informing all the cosmos vitally,
   An intellect that even atoms share,
   A purposeful, eternal energy?

   We apprehend this vital force not by
   Our instruments or intellects but through
   Our subtler intuition if we try,
   As saints and sages have, and you may, too.

   This sacred science now is nearly lost,
   Scoffed at by secular detractors blind
   To subtle insights, bound at any cost
   To limit the extension of the mind.

    That there might be a cosmic consciousness
    Dogma leaves them powerless to confess.

2011-12-19T04:32:00.000-08:00

HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS SAPIENS

   How can it be that I know all I know?
   What is this knowing, this strange consciousness
   That apprehends that anything is so?
   About such knowing I can only guess.

   Our consciousness and then self-consciousness—
   That double sapience by which we’re known,
   And know we know, the mark of our success—
   Appears peculiar to ourselves alone.

   But what if, as I’ve heard, such consciousness
   Is underlying everything that is:
   The Ground of Being, that which we must bless,
   A Source that some personify as His?

    I do not know, except to know I know;
    Beyond such ignorance I hope to go.

2011-12-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

WHY DO DOGS HAVE TAILS?

    It’s not for balance or for swishing flies
        Or swinging monkey-like high in the trees,
        But rather it’s a sign for others’ eyes
        Of whether they’re excited or at ease.

    It’s how they show emotion, how they feel,
        Which may be joyful, anxious or alert
        Or curious, frustrated, needing a meal
        Or, that they’re sleeping, peaceful and inert.

       Of all the many tales a tail can tell
         The happiest is—your dog is feeling well.

2011-12-17T05:01:00.000-08:00

A TASTE

     A taste of Higher Consciousness was mine
     When I was but nineteen and lacked the terms
     Or concepts then by which I might define
     What is ineffable, though soul confirms.

     I had, it’s true, been touched by Emerson,
     Enraptured by his transcendental themes
     In essays I was reading just for fun
     But found were luminous with mystic gleams.

     Somehow that summer reading before I
     Went off to college must have planted seeds
     That sprouted in the fall and, by and by,
     Produced the crop on which my soul still feeds.

Though yet uncertain of the mystic route,
      I’ve had that foretaste of the Absolute.

2011-12-16T04:22:00.000-08:00

THE MYSTIC SCIENTIST

     The Mystic Scientist (a paradox
     It seems) is one whose sight and insight
     Complement each other to outfox
     The wily Universe and see it right.

     For neither mode of knowing can reveal
     The whole of what exists exclusively:
     One way’s to calculate, the other feel,
     And both combined disclose Reality.

     While observation gathers all the facts,
     Methodically arranging what it finds,
     Deep intuition spies what rigor lacks:
     The underlying order of designs.

          The Scientist may formulate the whole;
    The Mystic, though, can penetrate its soul.

2011-12-16T04:18:00.001-08:00

SONNETEER

My dictionary says that “sonneteer”
Implies a poet who is second rate!
Tell that, Pedantic Wretch, to Will Shakespeare,
To Sydney, Spenser, Milton—clearly great—
And later Keats and even Robert Frost,
All eminent sonneteers, from Petrarch to
Dick Wilbur. Say their venerable form’s exhaust,
Call them mere hacks, and see what will ensue!
The wrath of centuries surely will descend
Upon your head when one the Muse selects
Takes pen in hand to gallantly defend
Against what boorish folly disrespects.
Though every sonneteer is not a master,
They’ve all more prowess, Sir, than you can muster.

2011-12-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

ON WIT

     What Pope and Swift intended as they writ
     Was to display varieties of wit,
     Satirical at least, at best profound,
     To castigate and chasten the unsound.
     The world they knew was rife with sin and folly,
     But wit would make their castigation jolly,
     So, rather than a tirade full of rage,
     They chose satire to rectify their age.
     The pen, they knew, is mightier than the sword
     Yet far more subtly leaves its victims gored,
     And ink is a rebuke that stings and stains
     Immediately, though history retains,
     Making a lesson that in ages hence
     Might warn descendants from the same offense.

2011-12-13T10:17:00.000-08:00

WATCHING BIRD WATCHERS

While some are watching birds when they fly through
Enroute to warmer climes as winter nears,
I’m more intrigued to watch this motley crew
Of gawkers keen to spot what next appears.

Binoculars and telescopes are trained
Skyward, while ears are all alert for songs
Descending from the trees—glee unrestrained
At fleeing winter’s wrath in south-bound throngs.

But what is it that drives this other flock
To tabulate those species who arrive,
Like mercenary merchants taking stock—
I’m baffled and amused by how they strive:

“Look there! Hear that?” Their joy is jubilant,
As if their feathered friends were heaven sent.

2011-12-11T04:23:00.000-08:00

ROUND AND ROUND

     One benefit of a bad memory
     Is how it helps imagination thrive:
     I’m forced to use inventive strategy,
     Thus what I can’t remember, I contrive.

     The downside, though, is that I’ve now composed
     The same poem many times in varied versions,
     And if you’ve read a few, you’ve surely dozed,
     Wishing I’d set off on some new excursions.

     Well this, it happens, is just such a verse,
     For never have I plied this theme before
     And happily I’ll hence avert the curse
     Of repetition that we both deplore.

      What I’ve in mind, as you shall shortly see,
          Is all about my faulty memory.

2011-12-10T04:10:00.000-08:00

“A FREE MAN’S WORSHIP”

Though once I would personify the thought,
Directing gratitude and praise to God
Or seeking guidance toward those goals I sought
Or hoping to avert His wrath and rod,

It’s now toward Goodness I direct my soul,
Not toward a person but a quality
That when attained through practice makes one whole
Without base worship in idolatry.

It’s images of people that inspire,
Defining goodness by the deeds they’ve done,
By showing strength and courage, striving higher,
Displaying moral victories well won.

So saith Bertrand Russell, decades dead,
Who may now know the truth of what he said.

2011-12-09T04:33:00.000-08:00

OUTMODED

   “Still climbing and continuing to aspire,
   I am not prone to pulling in my reins
   But rather would urge Pegasus toward higher
   Flights of fancy and more mellifluous strains.”

   So might have sung John Keats or Percy Bysshe
   In their transcendently Romantic mode,
   But to our modern tastes, that’s gibberish;
   We’d rather watch an ad than read an ode.

   What pass today as poems are not songs:
   They may be made for minds, but not for ears.
   So what is one to do now who still longs
   To sing like bygone bards and sonneteers?

      What one might do is what I do each day:
      Tune up my lute, invoke my Muse, and play.

2011-12-07T04:31:00.001-08:00

THE ABYSS

     “Throw me a line!” I called to the Abyss,
     From out of which all inspiration came;
     “Just get me started on the path of bliss,
     And from thereon I’ll find out my own aim,”
     For once a sonnet sets out on its course,
     It gathers its momentum as it goes:
     The form itself is its most fruitful source,
     Its beat and rhyme defining where it flows—
     Until the turn, which takes a different tack,
     Perhaps to say there’s no Abyss at all
     And what just seems a Void, silent and black,
     Is memory, that fund on which I call,
    Or memory and imagination intertwined,
          The magical recesses of the mind.

2011-12-06T04:49:00.000-08:00

AS GOOD AS I COULD BE

for Copthorne Macdonald

Should I have lived a better life than this?
Some say we always do the best we can,
And therefore in the last analysis
I couldn’t hope to be a better man.

Though this may seem a cowardly excuse
For failing to try harder to do good,
Perhaps no other choices would produce
A better outcome, rightly understood.

If I had known better and could do it,
Believing it the best way I might go,
I would have had the motive to pursue it
And had no inclination to say no.

Therefore I think I rightly may conclude
I’ve sowed and reaped and won what I’ve pursued.

2011-12-05T04:58:00.000-08:00

THE BEYOND

for Huston Smith

There’s something more than meets the eye and all
The other senses, entering the Beyond:
It’s something to amaze you or appall,
Depending on the nature of your bond.

If you are bound upon this flight for love,
The ecstasy you find will nourish you;
But if you shun the elements above
And covet power, then misery will ensue.

At first, though sweet, the fruit of willful lust,
The knowledge of what proves to be infernal,
Turns bitter and, when swallowed, tastes like dust,
A mockery of the manna that’s eternal.

What lies beyond this world our senses know
Is somewhere only blesséd ones should go.

2011-12-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

THE GOOD LIFE

        May life be good to you, and you to life,
       As full of blessedness as free from strife.

       How you decide your talents to employ
       And what you’ll do to bring relief and joy
       To those in need determine how you’ll fare:
       The better as you practice love and care.

       To aim your life at being thought well off,
       Afraid to hear the Joneses sneer and scoff
       Because they are more opulent than you
       Ensures that merely misery will ensue.

       Let wellness be the wealth you aim to find,
       The health and wholesomeness of being kind:
       For well, wealth, health and whole alike derive
       From holiness, without which none may thrive.

2011-12-03T04:40:00.000-08:00

INNOCENT ADAM’S LAST WORDS

                  Though I know all the crap’ll
          Befall from this apple,
                    Though it doom us to rue here,
      I’ll eat it for you, dear.



2011-12-02T04:27:00.000-08:00

MONARCH

Two thousand miles, it wafts its weary way
From Canada to Mexico then breeds
To make a grub that’s discontent to stay
A caterpillar but has loftier needs.

That caterpillar makes a chrysalis
Depending from a twig and ripening
Until completing its new synthesis
Then bursts to show a new-made Monarch’s wing.

At last, with all its million mates, it waits
Until the winds are right for their return
Then leaps the gulf to the United States
Then back to Canada for which they yearn.

And thus their wondrous cycle of rebirth
Reveals the miracle of life on Earth.

2011-12-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

“MANNERS MAKETH MAN”

How quaint and, even more, grandmotherly
It’s now become to start a letter: “Dear . . .”:
Dear Sir, Dear Madam, Dear Penelope,
Such salutations rarely now appear.

Instead, a breezy, casual “Hi” begins
A missive that’s no longer even penned
But typed and emailed, one of many sins
Against civility we can’t defend.

Though now it’s feeling awkward and outmoded,
I’ll still continue in that antique vein
Than take yet more from what’s too much eroded,
The manners that a good man must maintain.

Though you may think me moldy, old and loony,
I’m still less crotchety than Andy Rooney.

2011-11-30T04:41:00.000-08:00

THE RECKONING

for Jeffrey D. Wilhelm and Bruce Novak

How wise am I? How good has my life been?
These are the questions I may ask at last
When at the sill of death and staring in,
Reviewing the events of my whole past.

Were it not better, though, to ask them now—
How wise? How good?—when there may yet be time
To rectify my ways and disavow
What’s silly and seek after what’s sublime?

What’s wisdom but to realize what is
Of value to oneself and everyone,
Which does not take the genius of a whiz,
Nor need a lengthy lifetime to be done.

Of all things we might value, one above
The rest is true, and that of course is love.

2011-11-30T04:38:00.000-08:00

TO POSTERITY

A sonnet is “a moment’s monument”
That celebrates, encapsulates and keeps
The living memory of some grand event
Or just a wayside flower that fancy reaps.
Its purpose is to capture and preserve
What otherwise would vanish in the shade,
Honoring with dexterity and verve
Whatever earns a lasting accolade.
Yet underneath this lyric’s bright veneer,
A further motive prompts the sonnet’s birth:
To celebrate the very sonneteer
When long descended in forgetful earth.
In ages hence, this flicker may still shine,
And you may know its radiance was mine.

2011-11-28T04:27:00.000-08:00

SPEAK THE SPEECH

To read a Shakespeare play takes more than eyes;
To read aright requires you use your voice,
For it’s a script, not text, and you must vocalize
The character, and only then rejoice
For then you’ve brought to life a breathing soul,
Provoked, it’s true, by merely printed signs
But now inhabited and made a role
With which your inner animus aligns.

2011-11-27T04:20:00.000-08:00

THE SONNET ADDICT

Addicted to the pattern of this form,
Its fourteen lines of five iambic feet,
With subtle variations from that norm,
He finds how thought develops to that beat
Making its way as rhyme leads on to rhyme
While something new unfurls along the page,
Sometimes predictable, sometimes sublime,
A kind of freedom bound in this tight cage.
It’s just this paradox, the liberty
Of mind that such confinement brings to him,
That captivates him while it sets him free
And makes an hour an infinite interim.
While soaring through imagination’s skies,
He simply sits until right words arise.

2011-11-26T04:59:00.000-08:00

ILL TEMPERED

The missing virtue in most men, he knew,
Is temperance, midway betwixt extremes
Of hot and cold, a lack that causes rue
Yet generates the best dramatic themes:
Thus Romeo and Juliet, inflamed
By passion’s torch, prepare for their escape
From violent Verona and its maimed
Inhabitants—yet find their tomb agape.
And likewise Hamlet, proving passion’s slave,
In rashness stabs the foolish counselor,
Thus sealing his own journey to the grave,
A fate that flights of angels would deplore.
But Shakespeare’s stock and trade depended on
Intemperance that leaves us woe-begone.

2011-11-25T03:59:00.000-08:00

DOGS ARE PEOPLE TOO

If dogs are counted as a population,
And they exhibit personalities,
Then they deserve a higher class or station:
For dogs are people, too, despite species.

They live with us like children and as friends,
Each one expressing its own character
And giving that on which our joy depends:
Bright eyes, excited yips, and gorgeous fur.

But if you say they have no language skills,
Thus cannot count as people properly,
Then you’ve not seen how they express their wills
And make us do their bidding when they plea.

Of course, we haven’t asked for their opinions;
They may prefer to think that we’re their minions.

2011-11-24T09:21:00.000-08:00

ONE LIFE

THE SECULARIST’S PERSPECTIVE

To think that we shall live beyond our lives,
That something after corporal death survives
Perhaps to reincarnate and return
Because it has more lessons left to learn,
May be the most pernicious folderol
Since prophets long ago proclaimed our Fall:
False hope, false fear—we need no such delusions
Dissuading us from sensible conclusions.

We have but this one, precious life to live,
Which will be lovely if we learn to give
And share reciprocally what thriving needs
And not to cram the casket of base greeds.
Those merely looking out for Number One
Will find they’ve died before their lives are done.

2011-11-23T04:29:00.000-08:00

KNOW THYSELF

The “wisest man in Athens,” Socrates,
Said: “Know thyself,” for just such insight frees
Us also to be wise and realize
What we must shun and what most truly prize:

To know what is of value for our lives
And others’, too, and then how one contrives
To live accordingly best demonstrates
What wisdom is and how it shapes our fates.

2011-11-23T04:25:00.001-08:00

EUREKA

To wonder, ponder, speculate, suppose
As if one thus might mysteries disclose
Was how ancient philosophers proceeded,
But modern scientists brought what was needed
To make significant discoveries:
A method that employed hypotheses,
Empiric tests and proof beyond a doubt.

Still Archimedes was the one to shout
“Eureka!” when he stepped into his tub
And watched the water rise. His great hubbub
While running naked through Athenian streets
Announced the first of many noble feats
That science would achieve through patient study,
Clarifying mysteries dark and muddy.

2011-11-23T04:21:00.000-08:00

NOSEGATION

I’m sniffing round my mind and memories
Like Gyp, our dog, out on her daily rambles
With no predestined route, moved by the breeze-
Blown scents that prompt her romps and spur her
gambols.

Then, once I’ve caught a whiff of what I might
Pursue, like her, I set out on its track,
But unlike her I then begin to write,
Nosing out sense, disclosing rhymes I lack.

2011-11-20T04:47:00.000-08:00

MEMORY AND IMAGINATION

     When memory morphs into imagination
     It undergoes deletion and conflation
     While faithful rendering becomes depiction:
     Then what was meant as history turns to fiction.

2011-11-19T04:27:00.000-08:00

VERSE SHAPES UP

What started as a swarm that order lacked
Has here become a formal artifact.

2011-11-19T04:20:00.001-08:00

SAVED

     It matters not what doctrine you believe,
     But how your credo leads you to behave;
     What counts are deeds of goodness you achieve
     That save you from the terror of the grave.

2011-11-16T04:25:00.000-08:00

DOG WALK

All undefined by pathways or straight streets,
A walk for Gyppie has no destination~
She prowls along her customary beats
On routes determined by pure nosegation,

Which leads her to hop curbs and walls to scour
Beneath dense bushes where the scent of cat
Allures her, heedless of the threatening glower
She gets confronting one, the impending spat.

Where we align our lives for rectitude,
The ways of dogs defy geometry;
Their rambles are a shapeless interlude
Of wanderlust and sensuality.

Which may be why we love and envy them:
They get away with what our rules condemn.

2011-11-16T04:19:00.001-08:00

THE LEADEN RULE

“Do unto others as they’ve done to you”:

That Leaden Rule prevails in every land

Where reciprocity is always due,

Which keeps the wrathful fires of vengeance fanned.

2011-11-14T04:05:00.001-08:00

ANONYMOUS

Whoever wrote the plays in Shakespeare’s name,
If not the glover’s son from Stratford town,
Some nobleman whom popular acclaim
Would sully and prompt priggish peers to frown
(So goes the speculation of detractors),
That man remains mysterious today
Because of the conspiracy of actors
Colluding to disguise the truth for pay.
Why not assume a humble country lad,
A genius, let’s allow, and strictly schooled
In grammar, logic, rhetoric and bade
To study classics might in time have fooled
The supercilious arbiters of fame
That in a man there’s more than in a name.

2011-11-12T11:05:00.001-08:00

THE MYSTERY

What are we but an evanescent breath?
And when at last our spirit has expired,
Leaving this clod where we reside enmired,
We then rejoin the universe of death.
Or is there more to spirit than mere breath?
Is it an animus divinely fired,
Whose flame grows brighter as it is inspired
By a vitality transcending death?
We cannot know. This is a mystery.
And we can only speculate and guess
What may transpire when we have breathed our last.
Still, we may hope, and that may help us be
A mortal with few evils to confess
With spirit calm as our last breath is passed.

2011-11-10T04:06:00.001-08:00

RELENT

There comes a time when Judgment must let go
Its vise-like grip, demanding rectitude
And, though unmerited, let Pity flow
To evil ones, however cruel and rude.

Though Justice be not served, yet Mercy is,
That higher calling of humanity,
Which Jesus on the cross revealed as his,
The only route to health and sanity.

Without solicitude and pardon’s cure,
Our evils would eternally endure.

2011-11-08T04:20:00.000-08:00

ENDINGS

Three men I know are very near their ends:
A fool, a menace, and a kindly soul.

The first’s oblivious which way he tends,
Dementia having taken its sad toll,
Yet he and prudence always were at odds
While appetite and pleasure drove him on.

The second one hung out with brutes and clods,
An artful dodger and a practiced con,
Cruel to his family and all his kin,
While solely looking out for Number One.

The third, a gentleman who’s clear of sin,
Can happily gaze back on all he’s done
For others’ sakes, glowing with modest pride—
Only in him does charity reside.

2011-11-05T04:28:00.000-07:00

BEYOND VERSE

My poetry comes from my head, not heart,
And thus do I prefer to call it “verse”:
If I could put the horse before the cart,
It might be more affecting, if less terse.

So tightly bound by rhythm and by rhyme,
So measured out by merely rational schemes,
It never can ascend to the Sublime
Or hearken to grand elevated dreams.

O, let me summon Pegasus to fly
On “viewless wings of poesy” with me
Upon his back beyond the azure sky
And enter cordial realms of ecstasy.

My heart exalted thus, my eyes then clear,
My pen might write a line men can revere.

2011-11-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

KARMA

          If you break laws of nature or of man,
          Expect ill consequence will foil your plan,
          Since retribution is inherent in
          Commission of both error and of sin.

2011-11-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

ROOSTER DOGS

Each morning Keena cock-a-doodle-doos,
Pointing her stubby snout towards the sky
And letting loose a mournful yodel whose
Pathos prompts Gyp to emulate her cry.

Their duet lasts ten seconds at the most,
But it’s enough to start me from my sleep
Or in my dream to make me see a ghost
That’s howling in some darksome dungeon’s keep.

Then, just as suddenly, they cease their song,
Go back to sleep, relieved of agony,
Oblivious to what a minute past seemed wrong,
Yet leaving startled me in misery.

Two dogs do not a ruddy rooster make,
And that’s a bloody awful way to wake.

2011-10-31T04:25:00.000-07:00

KINDNESS

What greater compliment is there than “kind”?
How else can one’s true goodness be defined?
That you are gentle, generous and mild
Shows your good nature has been undefiled,
Or that you’ve been from sinfulness redeemed,
Or what was thought ungentle only seemed:
When dealing with the evilly inclined,
Sometimes one must be cruel to be kind.

2011-10-29T05:52:00.001-07:00

DESTINED TO BE YOU

for Parker J. Palmer

No, you’re no blank slate when you’re born but own
A code like your genetic code, unique
To your own soul: that fate towards which you’re prone,
That self you must devote your life to seek.

Although this self’s implicit in your being,
It never will be fully realized
Until attended to—just that is freeing
For what, until you do, remains disguised.

This hidden wholeness is your being’s mold,
The form it must assume for you to thrive;
Unless you do, you’ll be like buried gold
And fail to shine or flourish, just survive.

To be the whole of who you truly are
Turn inward and not toward some distant star.

2011-10-28T04:44:00.000-07:00

BIG QUESTION: IS THERE MORE?

The Big Question, the Enduring Question, the Ultimate Question for me is: “Is There More?”

Is there more than meets the eye and the instruments and methodologies of science? Is Truth confined to physics—to the empirical, evidential, measurable world that our amazing sciences investigate and theorize about?

Or is there a realm of “reality” beyond the reach of physical sciences—a meta-physical realm that some call spiritual but skeptics call imaginary, fantastical or delusional—a realm of personal intimation but not of public confirmation in the objective way of science?

And if there is, what can we know of it, and how can we share such insights with each other in beneficial ways, and not, as rival religions do, foment factions?

2011-10-25T04:09:00.000-07:00

FAUSTUS’ FALL

Though Marlowe’s mighty lines make Faustus soar
In speculation of what magick powers
He might command, though heavens above deplore,
When reckoning comes, see how he skulks and
cowers:
No towering rhetoric can save him then
From proving in his pride most curst of men.

2011-10-24T04:44:00.000-07:00

GNOLEDGE

While astro-scientists today infer
The likelihood of life elsewhere is strong,
And human hope and fantasy concur,
The chances of our finding it are long.

For though our powerful instruments can probe
The cosmic depths to distant galaxies
In search of such another Earth-like globe,
Our knowledge will remain hypotheses.

We’re destined at our best to speculate
Unless we conquer not just space but time,
Learning how with our minds to penetrate
Infinitude and enter the Sublime.

For only there what physics must conceal
May Gnosis, in our ecstasy, reveal.

2011-10-24T04:40:00.000-07:00

MORAL AMBIGUITY

          The man who shot Gaddafi is a hero,
          And yet a murderer as well, whose chance
          Of being brought to trial is next to zero,
          Considering the ambiguous circumstance.

2011-10-23T04:55:00.000-07:00

HUMAN ADVANCEMENT

Where is our species headed as a race?
It’s true we’re gaining power to chart our course
And have already entered outer space
As if by seeking we might find our source.

But maybe that’s not how we should advance,
And progress doesn’t mean that kind of move,
But rather we must learn how to enhance
Our consciousness, and intellects improve.

Though nature may be “red in tooth and claw,”
That nature in our past can be out-grown,
Since we have come to know a higher law
Adapted for the human race alone.

Of all those creatures that we stand above,
We are the ones who can progress in love.

2011-10-22T04:23:00.000-07:00

THE FICTIONEER

          When memory and imagination blend,
          Another world emerges into view,
          A world that I can hope to comprehend
          Since I invented it and made it true.

        The fictions I devise become more real
          Than what we take as actuality,
          For what in life is hidden, I reveal,
          And nothing’s left to errant fantasy.

          If you seek deeper meaning, crave more sense,
          Then turn to fiction for its true pretense.

2011-10-21T04:30:00.001-07:00

TRUE ILLUSIONS

We live in true illusions all our lives,
A world that active fantasy contrives
To make sense of events befalling us
And view as wonderful or ominous,
Taking our fate as hell- or heaven-sent,
According to our disposition’s bent.

Though we may fancy otherwise and think
All’s real, we can eclipse it with a wink
And, as we sleep, dream up another world,
For in our minds infinity lies furled.

It’s only custom keeps us as we are,
But over there—you see that door ajar?—
The costumes in that wardrobe wait for you:
Just try one on, walk through, and see what’s true.

2011-10-20T04:17:00.001-07:00

CANIS AMORETTIS

Our dogs are little loves, our amoretti,
On whom we shower affections, grand and petty.
They’ve stolen our wan hearts with winsomeness
Yet given them back enlarged with each caress,
Which fills us with such tenderness and care
That everywhere we go love’s ours to share,
And thus do dogs enhance humanity
By mitigating our insanity.

2011-10-19T03:59:00.000-07:00

HEAVEN AND EARTH

One day—may it come soon—we’ll have a pill
For every malady that makes us ill
And causes all disease, both physical
And moral, so we’ll then be sensible
And whole, in all ways healthy, sane and well,
Living in bliss, no longer knowing Hell,
For what we once called Heaven will be here
On Earth, where love prevails and none knows fear.

“But wait!” you say, “Is that indeed what we
Desire: just bliss and calm serenity?
What of the risks and challenges that made
Our fragile lives adventurous and displayed
Some of our grandest traits: courage and love?
No—let’s keep Hell on Earth and Heaven above.”

2011-10-17T04:28:00.000-07:00

MESSAGE IN A SPACE CAPSULE

Listen—you Earthlings have become too dangerous to remain so foolish.

Therefore, we must finally intervene, despite our own Prime Directive commanding us not to intrude in the affairs of intelligent life systems on any planets in our galaxy.

In your dire case, however, we justify our exception because you have come so very close to achieving a state of planetary prosperity and of attaining the higher level of consciousness necessary to become a truly cosmic species—Homo transcendens—that it would be unconscionable for us to allow you to destroy Earth’s ecosystems, as you are about to do at worst, or at least to set back the development of intelligent life on Earth by eons.

Therefore, in the spirit of minimalism, we now only issue this directive letting you know you are being kindly observed by well-wishers from afar, solicitous of the success of your vital enterprise on Earth. Let this knowledge encourage you to transcend the short-sightedness that presently prompts you to degrade and destroy the viability of your precious planet and to thwart the infinitely promising prospects of your continually evolving species.

We leave it to you to discover your own way to transcendence, comforted now by knowing you are not alone in the Cosmos, and knowing that purpose inheres in the very fabric of our universe. That purpose is to foster intelligent life that grows toward wisdom.

Therefore, chart your course accordingly, assured that benevolent guidance will inspire you to find your way if you go astray.

Now, Earthlings, ask yourselves: What are your most imperative priorities? Make a list.

2011-10-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

WHY STUDY ENGLISH?

Because you want to gain mastery of the English language in its full range of employments: exposition, description, argumentation and artistry.
While you may explicitly study the craft of writing so as to develop your own skills of composition in many modes, most of the mastery you attain will come vicariously through your perusal of excellent literature in English, from ancient to contemporary masterpieces.
Only as you saturate yourself in great writing of all kinds can you assimilate the means for writing and speaking artfully yourself.
Appreciation (that is, comprehension and evaluation) of great writing is the aim of literary study, which pays tribute to the marvelous and various mentalities of poets, song writers, playwrights, story tellers, essayists and other wordsmiths whose medium is the English language, whether originally or in translation.
And as appreciation leads to imitation, adaptation and invention—perhaps in you—then the tradition of English expands.

Join the fun!

2011-10-15T04:03:00.000-07:00

LOST DREAMS

My dreams are evanescent when I wake
And disappear like mists in morning’s dawn—
I briefly glimpse their coattails as they make
Their exits from the stage and then are gone.

Yet it’s enough for me to clearly know
That, moments past, my mind was occupied
By an elaborate and entrancing show,
Which somehow wakefulness cannot abide.

Although I vainly struggle to reclaim
Some vestiges of what’s gone vaporous,
I know tonight there’ll be another game
Of hide and seek. My mind’s voluminous
And houses countless scripts it can produce.

Too bad my memory plays fast and loose.

2011-10-14T04:14:00.000-07:00

BECOMING WHO I AM

I haven’t always been who I am now—
Or is that only partly true, in that
I was the twig that’s grown to be a bough?
But still I hear a wary caveat
That urges I’ve been shaped by circumstance,
Compounded of what fate has chanced to throw
Into my path, the seeds that fortune plants—
No other destiny than that can grow.
Yet something in me argues otherwise
That senses an essential character
Inscribed within my soul that still implies
What’s destined to unfold as things occur.
Becoming who I am has been my goal,
The destiny implicit in my soul.

2011-10-13T04:20:00.000-07:00

A GENTLE KNIGHT

Sir Edmund Spenser dreampt of knights in arms
   Of ladies in distress and monsters vile,
   Of sorcerers who conjured potent charms
   Unwary wights to capture and beguile;
   For every Christian soul must stand the trial
   Of evil and seek out salvation’s way,
   Defeating forces that would him defile
   And proving by his victory more than clay
But spirit, shining bright with virtue’s glorious ray.

2011-10-12T04:27:00.001-07:00

PARADOX

Where give and take are both the same is where
Another being is in need of care:
Caretaker and caregiver are but one,
For giving is rewarding when love’s done.

2011-10-11T04:24:00.000-07:00

THE HAPPIEST ATTITUDE

What is the happiest attitude a person can walk about in the world with?

That every other person and every other creature needs to be loved and deserves to be loved.

That, I suppose, is how Jesus walked about and other saintly and benevolent souls who spread warmth and comfort by their radiant presence.

Love, care, compassion—that is the attitude.

Not fear. Not envy. Not malice. Not indifference. Not neglect.

But tidings of great joy.

2011-10-10T04:23:00.000-07:00

DREAM THINGS TRUE

My dreams are evanescent, and I wake
To watch them dissipate and disappear,
Wishing that in my memory I might make
A place to save them, permanent and clear.

I have the vaguest notion that I’ve seen
In dreamscapes wondrous possibilities,
That alternate realities have been
Revealed which daylight consciousness can’t seize.

Or are they merely fantasies, absurd
Concoctions of deranged mentality,
The Siren singing of some mythic bird,
Not intimations of what’s yet to be?

Still all that we have made began in dreams:
Imagination feeds on what first seems.

2011-10-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

THE IMPROVEMENT OF HUMANITY

QUESTION: Can human beings be improved and, if so, by what means?

Of course, “the human condition” can be and has been improved over time so that many people now live more healthily and prosperously, with far greater opportunities for varied experiences and personal development than in former eras. And as knowledge and sciences of all kinds advance, the prospects for the improving of our circumstances and opportunities expand even further. A greater proportion of people will live healthier, be better educated, and enjoy greater opportunities for contributing to the general welfare of the world, leading useful, meaningful lives.

But besides improving the conditions in which human beings live, can the human species itself improve? Analogously to computer systems and programs, can we be “upgraded”? Can our very consciousness be raised to higher levels of cognizance and functioning? Can we evolve into a higher order of humanity—say Homo sapiens sapiens sapiens? Our predecessor, Homo sapiens, like other animals, was conscious. We, Homo sapiens sapiens, are self-conscious as well, or conscious of being conscious. But what higher order of being conscious might yet be manifested in our successor species, Homo sapiens3?

The answer proposed by ancient gurus is Enlightenment or Nirvana or Christ Consciousness. The answer of Richard Maurice Bucke, a Canadian physician, in 1901, was Cosmic Consciousness, which he found exemplified by many harbingers throughout history, from the Buddha to Jesus to Walt Whitman. Bucke’s premise is that human consciousness has further reaches of illumination to attain and has already done so in certain favored forerunners who demonstrate the course of general human development still to come.

Is such a proposition worth exploring? Or must we assume the innate fallibility and deficiency of our species—that we are born broken, naturally self-serving and sinful, and unable to elevate ourselves above our tragic malady?

I opt for the potentials for human consciousness’ evolving to higher, clearer, even holier states than are common now, which are evident in exemplary persons alive today, often honored for their humanitarian acts—such as South Africa’s Bishop Desmond Tutu, Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, and Tibet’s Dalai Lama. Whether such exalted consciousness be called “God consciousness” or “unity consciousness” or “cosmic consciousness” or “evolutionary enlightenment,” such a transcendental state has been reported throughout history and is not the exclusive property of any particular religion or belief system.

Whether it be called a “shift or elevation of consciousness” or a “spiritual transformation,” if the improvements in a person are growth in compassion, love and charitable behavior, then such a state is worth cultivating, and the methods for fostering it should be taught universally.

2011-10-08T04:23:00.000-07:00

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS REDUX

That there is, here is, anything at all
And, more amazing still, that we are here
To marvel at all creatures, great and small,
And know the world as perilous and dear
Is wondrous, awful and mysterious.

Yet only for a moment will I think
A thought like this, till frivolous
Distractions let the stunning wonder sink.

Why is it that the world becomes mundane,
And the glory of creation dims until
I focus only on our loss and pain,
Oblivious to my former cosmic thrill?

No matter why. My job’s to cultivate
A mind field that can generate this state.

2011-10-07T03:50:00.000-07:00

A GOOD DEATH

Most of us fear death, and rightly so. Our instinct is to live and to continue living and to defend ourselves from harm and death. That’s healthy. Yet to be obsessed with the specter of death or to be in denial about one’s own death is unhealthy, neurotic, and needs to be rectified for sanity’s sake.

Putting the prospect of one’s own death into a proper perspective is one of life’s great challenges. Only by directly acknowledging and confronting our mortality can we be moved to make wise decisions respecting the opportunities we may have for living fully and living well and for not meeting death with regret.

One of the great clichés of philosophy is Socrates’ declaration: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” If that is true, then we know what human life is for and what makes it worthwhile and gratifying: our wide and deep examination of our unique capacities as human beings.

Therefore, the deepest fear we may feel as human beings is to discover, when we come to die, that we have not lived, not lived as fully as we might have done (to paraphrase Thoreau in Walden).

A good death rewards a good life.

2011-10-06T04:13:00.001-07:00

IN PRAISE OF VERSE

Though mathematics is no strength of mine,
I still prefer to write this kind of line,
A line in numbers neatly measured out.
Where others let their language gush and spout,
My tempered metrics make my thoughts proceed
Apace when thought and sound have well agreed,
And greater ingenuity ensues
When rhyme restricts my choice, yet proffers cues.
The freedom of Free Verse is chaos’ course,
Erratic babbling without meter’s force
Or rhyming’s chime that makes a poem song,
For in a lyric such effects belong.
What makes a line of verse know where to turn
Should be the poet’s first and last concern.

2011-10-02T03:51:00.000-07:00

TALKING VS. WRITING

When you’re talking, you’re just conversing; but when you’re writing, you’re performing. You are employing language at a higher level, with more consideration, care and craft.

While talking happens in real time and usually addresses an auditor or more, writing happens in dream time and may be addressed to an imaginary reader or only to yourself.

In between sentences or phrases, seconds or minutes may pass because writing is atemporal and discontinuous—it is off the clock—which allows it to be more deliberate and consciously designed even as it first emerges, but also as it is revised.

Writing is a performance to the extent that it strives to give form to the composition: to compose it, rather than blurt it, to shape and reshape its carefully deployed components, until wholeness is achieved, with all its parts in harmony.

It does not just stop; it is finished.

2011-10-01T03:57:00.000-07:00

IDENTITY

for Jonathan Miller

Why is it that we’re This and not That way
Inclined? A natural disposition bends
Us toward distinct behaviors we display,
A quintessential force that shapes our ends.

Call it our Character or call it Soul
And see it evident from early on,
As if innate, proposing what our role
In life will be, the habits we shall don.

Though “one man in his time plays many parts,”
As circumstance and fortune may dispose,
A singular identity in hearts
Will manifest and temperament disclose.

The happy news is we’re innately soulful,
Denying which will only make you doleful.

2011-09-30T04:22:00.001-07:00

IN PRAISE OF LANGUAGE

Language is our main means for construing and comprehending and representing our experience of the world—to ourselves and to others.

Therefore, the more capacious our vocabulary and the more capable our skills of grammar, syntax, logic and rhetoric, then the more fully and clearly may we make sense of what we apprehend.

Without such a tool for sense-making, for conceptualizing and articulating, we could not be fully realized as human beings employing the whole potential of our unique intelligence.

Master language, then, if you mean to achieve the sapience inherent in Homo sapiens sapiens.

2011-09-30T04:04:00.000-07:00

THE ART OF BECOMING A WOMAN

an essay topic

From my informal observations, I would propose that in our contemporary American society much more conscious and intentional artistry is required of a girl in becoming a woman than of a boy in becoming a man.

Perhaps it’s like the difference between arts and crafts: while craftsmanship is a prized ability, useful and handsome at the best, artistry is more highly esteemed for its refinement, subtlety, expressiveness and beauty.

If this topic clicks with you and you feel like supporting or contesting my proposition, then bring in the particulars of your own experience and observations to illustrate how you reckon the respective transformative processes of girls becoming women and boys becoming men.

2011-09-30T03:46:00.000-07:00

CRACKING THE SOUL’S CODE

for Jonathan Miller

For what some say is nothing, we have names,
Like psyche, spirit, daimon, essence, ghost,
Implying an implicit Self with aims:
An animus at least, a Soul at most.

What is it that gives us integrity
That makes us at our highest reach feel whole?
It’s something more than personality,
No artificial construct, but a Soul.

This Higher Self, this essence of our being,
Is what we live and long to realize;
Though no imperious autocrat decreeing
A destined fate, it shows us what is wise.

Consider then your Soul an inner guide
That points your way and helps you to decide.

2011-09-27T04:30:00.001-07:00

A PROLOGUE TO EVERYMAN

Lo, Everyman, who passeth on his way,
Neglectful of his destined ending day,
Until on that day Death confronted him
And suddenly his hopefulness went dim.
For all that he had long depended on—
His Strength, and Beauty, Goods and Friends—were
     gone,
And nothing but Good Deeds could ease his woe
Or stead him in the dark where he must go.
But what of penitent confession and
Heart sorrow—will our Father understand
If on our last day we have grown contrite
And shown repentance—shall we see the Light?
     Will not Christ’s sacrifice be our envoy
     To save our souls and gain us heavenly joy?

2011-09-25T03:35:00.001-07:00

THE VITAL SPARK

Though it be filled with peril, harm and strife,

What greater miracle is there than life?

And such a marvel is vitality

We cannot penetrate its mystery.

What is this spirit that inspires us:

Our breath, our being, our bright animus,

As easily extinguished as a flame

And yet the pinnacle of Nature’s aim?

While we can’t fathom our essential spark

That briefly shines against eternal dark,

We may still praise the quintessential force

Engendering vital consciousness, our source,

And hope that, beyond time, eternity

Discovers to our souls its mystery.

2011-09-24T14:09:00.000-07:00

TRANSLATED FROM CHAUCER

The Wife of Bath’s Tale, ll. 1225-1235

“Choose now just one of these two things,” she said:
“To have me foul and old until I’m dead,
Yet be to you a true and humble wife
And never to displease you all my life,
Or else young, fair and fitting for romance,
In which case then you’ll have to take your chance
For what befalls your house because of me
(Or in some other place, as it may be).
Now, choose the option toward which you’re more
prone.”
The knight took thought and made a sorry moan.

2011-09-23T04:54:00.001-07:00

FALLING OFF

Though he had many sins to be forgiven,
The old man never thought he should be shriven,
But went his own way, negligent as ever,
Determined in his errors to persever.

Though current memories no longer lingered,
The past he knew too well and always fingered
And, like the Ancient Mariner, recited
To passersby what left them undelighted:

Old stories of sea battles and ships sinking,
Which recitations came as close to thinking
As his old brain could summon in its falling,
A spectacle both rueful and appalling.

His fondest dream—to wake to eggs and bacon
And then, on his last day, not to awaken.