WISING UP  III

                    We’ve been potential in the universe
                    Since the shebang first burst into its being
                    Awaiting that bright time it would disburse
                    Creatures like us born capable of seeing,
                    Who’d ultimately grow to comprehend
                    The Cosmos with our sciences and wit
                    Predicting even where it all might tend
                    And where in its progression we might fit.
                    Our challenge is to keep our heads on straight
                    For our propensity is to grow bent
                    Turned from good ends by jealousy and hate
                    That undermine our loving sentiment.
                        For amity and peace long to endure
                        Depends on whether humans can mature.

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ETYMOLOGY

                    Today I heard a man described as an
                    “Enthusiastic atheist,” absurd
                    Though that would be: for “God within” that man
                    Is the root meaning of this Grecian word.

*

SPELL UNBOUND

                    The eastward wind proclaims a passing train
                    Whistling at each crossing through the town,
                    And up above, the first descending plane
                    Announces it will soon be touching down.

                    The smaller sounds of birds and squirrels declare
                    The business of the morning has begun
                    With scavenging for precious breakfast fare,
                    Their search for food a task that’s never done.

                    The quiet of the night has disappeared—
                    The rumble and the hubbub of the day
                    Have eve’s serene illuminations bleared
                    And bustled contemplation far away.

                         The poet sets aside his pad and pen:
                         Earlier tomorrow he’ll try again.

*

HUMANKIND II

                    That humankind’s not often very kind
                    Nor, for that matter, notably humane
                    Suggests a flaw in how we are designed:
                    A natural tendency to go insane.

                    What other could account for all our wars
                    Now verging on a nuclear holocaust,
                    Which anyone of rectitude deplores,
                    Knowing our whole species would be lost.

                    No God will save us from insanity;
                    It’s only we, who if we can mature
                    In time, may rectify humanity
                    And help a healthy planet to endure.

                         Perhaps, then, visitors from outer space
                         Will come to honor such a gracious race.

*

THE VERSECRAFTER

                    Skillful, sometimes brilliant, in his art, 
                    Our would-be poet practiced day by day
                    Devoted to the style nearest his heart, 
                    His manner being the rhyme-and-meter way
                    That served the classic poets through the ages
                    And still can capture auditors with song
                    Enchanted by such spells as ancient mages
                    Cast to make a sentiment prolong.
                    What most compelled his daily regimen
                    Was curiosity, to see what would
                    Turn up, going where he had never been
                    And often making something pretty good.
                        In time the hope of turning one great verse,
                        Gave way to making each new one less worse.

*

OUR BETTER ANGELS

                 The novel notion transhumanity
                 Implies how next our species may evolve—
                 Presumably toward greater sanity,
                 Which many ancient issues should resolve.

                We’ve long envisioned angels up above
                As images of what we might become,
                As paragons of peacefulness and love,
                Were we our deepest essences to plumb.

                Now that we’ve grown so capable of harm,
                Putting at risk our very planet’s life,
                It’s time we universally disarm
                And practice ways that calmly settle strife.

                     Those angels whom we’ve worshipped from afar
                     May prove exemplary of who we truly are.

*

TIGGY AND BUNNY

NOSEGATION

                    Walking with dogs, I learn another way
                    Of picking out a path as we proceed,
                    Not as I do or somewhere I can say,
                    But rather simply letting noses lead:

                    It’s nosegation that maps out our course,
                    Not following fixed routes but vagrant scents
                    And tracing them to their elusive source,
                    A canny kind of canine recompense.

*

BOUND VERSE III

                    Why did the classic poets all confine
                    Themselves to rhyme and meter, line by line,                    
                     Whereas today the manner’s to be free                    
                    Of such restraints, now thought absurdity?                     
                    What “free-verse” poets do not understand                   
                    Is how exigencies one never planned                     
                    Provoke spontaneously new lines of thought                    
                    Revealing what one didn’t know one sought.                     
                    Relinquishing the motive of control                     
                    Aimed at some set premeditated goal—                    
                    But rather open to the vagaries                    
                    Of mind, compelled by the exigencies                    
                    Of rhyme, one finds an unexpected place                     
                    By what, when fortunately blessed, seems grace.

*

THE SINGULARITY

                    Some esoteric souls proclaim today
                    The Singularity is drawing nigh,
                    An intellectual event they say
                    That changes everything beneath the sky.

                    We humans then will have attained the power
                    To modify and to manipulate
                    The world, making old Mother Nature cower,
                    Becoming the architects of Earth’s own fate.

                    If this be so, it’s we whom we must change,
                    For as we are we’ve always been a threat,
                    Wayward and haphazard as we range,
                    Committing errors we afterward regret.

                         The single object that we must devise
                         Is how we’ll be when we have grown wise.

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 CARITAS

(take two)

                    A more important word than love is care:
                    An act to do, not feelings to declare,
                    For feelings are but sentiments inside,
                    While care is how true loving is applied.

                    Such love in action we call charity:
                    Both words and deeds expressed in parity
                    For love is more than merely sentiment
                    But careful acts with generous intent.

*

CARE

I

                         A more important word than love is care,
                         Implying active steps you take to serve
                         Than just a sentiment you might declare,
                         But heartfelt charity one can observe.

 II

                         Caregivers and caretakers are the same,
                         A paradox of terminology;
                         Though opposites ostensibly, their aim’s
                         Identical: relieving malady.

*

 

THE POET’S HOPE

               I am a poet, so you’ll have to pardon me
               If I am prone to moods of vacancy—
               Abstracted and dissociated while
               I’m working, rhyme by rhyme, to reconcile
               The sense that is emerging with the sound,
               In hopes of singing something that’s profound.

               It’s not enough simply to speak outright;
               My message must be fashioned to delight
               For only then will memory retain
               What otherwise might vanish from the brain.

               It is my foremost duty to beguile
               Or, better yet enchant, with such a style
               As guarantees that all posterity
               Will cherish what I write delightedly.

*

FROM BELIEF TO CONVICTION

                     It’s one thing to believe, another yet
                     To be convinced by evidence and proof,
                     When all the normal standards have been met
                     That verify veracity and truth.

                     Until such time, one only may suppose
                     That something that’s alleged is truly so
                     As observation and clear thought disclose,
                     Just where the best investigators go.

                     Yet there are some beliefs that never may
                     Be subject to such skeptic scrutiny
                     Since they transcend the world of everyday
                     And enter a new realm: Eternity.

                          Conviction that Eternity is real
                          Is something one can’t think but only feel.
 

*

THESAURUS REX

                “Abate, abash, abet, abstemious”:
               So started out the list of words to learn
               In seventh grade (First Form), and did we fuss
               Thinking that Sir (Jacques Harlow) was too stern.

               It is amazing, though, how attitudes evolve,
               So by year’s end, we’d somehow got on board
               With this strict regimen and learned resolve,
               Enlarging, week by week, our vast word hoard.

               Yet more than that, we grew more curious
               About new words we met in what we read
               As our small binders grew compendious
               And our intelligence was richly fed.

                    Dear Sir, now long departed from this earth,
                    I thank you for my word hoard’s ample girth.

*

YOU FEEL MY PAIN

               Oooh, uuuh, aaah, I ache—
               As gas pains in my gut keep me awake
               Throughout the night, which nothing will allay,
               And now begins another dreary day.

               The closest thing to comfort’s to complain:
               Since misery loves company, my pain
               I’ll freely share with everyone, with you—
               Moaning and groaning and making much ado.

               Already now, I feel a turn—relief—
               May it be lasting and not merely brief;
               Yet now I see you grimace as I did—
               You see how hard it is to keep pain hid.

                    I recommend you do as I have done:
                    Write some contagious couplets and then run.

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NOTES ON HOPE

Hope is one of the big three Judeo-Christian human virtues: “Faith, Hope and Charity.”

How does it differ from the other two?

• Faith is the conviction that a benevolent and almighty deity operates within the universe, one who is lovingly responsive to our needs, giving us careful attention and protection, such as good parents provide for their children. 

 

• Charity is the loving provision and supply of what is vital to others’ well-being. 

 

• Hope is the eager expectation that all such needs will be fulfilled against whatever fears or doubts might tempt one to despair.

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A MIDSUMMER NIGHTMARE

               Sometime in the early morning hours,
               July the fifth, while most were deep asleep,
               Some fool lit a bouquet of bursting flowers
               That must have made our startled neighbors leap

               From their snug beds, as much appalled as we:
               The normal fireworks of July four
               We tolerate with equanimity,
               But such egregious ruckus we deplore.

               “Come on, you fuddy-duddies, get a grip;
               It’s still the weekend of this holiday,
               And I’ve some extra doozies to let rip”—
               Is what I might imagine he would say.

                    I heard one neighbor shout into his yard:
                    “May you—you fool—be hoist by your petard!”

*

VOCATION

               To take for granted this abundant wonder
               Of consciousness and grand intelligence
               We own would be a monumental blunder,
               Clear evidence of impercipience.

               The proper way instead ’s to celebrate
               The gift with which our species is endowed—
               No better way than working to create
               That which would make our own Creator proud.

               Good Orderly Direction brought us here
               Endowing us with capabilities
               That in no other creatures now appear
               And opportunities that we must seize.

                    Our calling and our duty then is plain:
                    To compensate for our original stain.

*

WOW!

               To take the marvel of all life for granted
               Instead of seeing that the world’s enchanted
               Is to commit a most atrocious blunder
               When what’s appropriate is wonder—WONDER!

*

TRANSCENDENCE

               How all this came to be inspires awe:
               This world, this life, this consciousness, this wonder,
               And yet for all our glory we’ve a flaw,
               Which makes one think our Maker made a blunder.

               Or is it, rather, we’ve a way to go
               And have implicit purpose to reveal
               And that our species is designed to grow
               Displaying virtues errors now conceal?

               Adventure seems the purpose of it all
               And revelation of some destiny
               Implicit in the first creatures to crawl
               Now manifesting in humanity.

                    If we shall truly realize our end,
                    There’re glaring errors humans must transcend.

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