RHYME’S REASON

     Why do I write—to please posterity,
     In hopes my little artifacts will last?
     Though I may wish that such a fate might be
     And therefore mean to keep them safely stashed,
     That’s not what moves me to indite a line
     Then write another with a matching beat;
     It’s rather the allure of the design,
     Discovering how to measure out the feet
     In ways that correspond with flowing thought,
     Which finds out as it goes where it is bound
     As if what it discovers had been sought,
     Implicit in the mystery of sound.
          The reason for my writing is this rhyme
          That leads me to discover the sublime.

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IT’S TURTLES, ALL THE WAY DOWN

      There’s nothing in the universe that’s not
      Alive, nothing inanimate, inert,
      Though seeming so to those who haven’t got
      The means to see what molecules exert,

      How even atoms bind strange energy
      And then, still deeper down, dark forces play
      Unknown roles and enigmatically
      Control the cosmos with their covert sway.

      All this is life, in fundamental form,
      For nothing is inanimate that moves:
      These elemental energies that swarm
      Do so as some dark mystery behooves.

           It’s all alive—the whole cosmic shebang:
           Though you see only yin, there’s also yang.

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THE NEW COSMOLOGY

for Duane Elgin

   “The glory, jest and riddle of the world”—
   So Alexander Pope defined mankind,
   Aware that through the universe we’re swirled,
   Yet of our species’ end or aim quite blind.

   Though conscious of our consciousness, we grope
   To grasp and comprehend the mind
   That we possess and find its farthest scope,
   While wondering how it came to be designed.

   Or was mind first, a spirit that gave birth
   To all materiality throughout
   The universe, including this, our Earth?
   We theorize but still remain in doubt—

        Though maybe now at last it’s growing clear
        Just why and how and wherefore we are here.

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GNOWLEDGE

As much a mystery as how we came
To be as conscious as we are, and know
Ourselves as knowers, is the very flame
Of life itself, how it may come and go:

And when it goes, does it go darkly out
Or elsewhere, where it lives eternally?
Is there some way to settle all such doubt
And come to existential certainty?

The gnosis of such knowing would transcend
What’s physical and secular and clear,
The ordinary ways we comprehend,
And take us to where miracles appear:

     Call it the twilight zone of consciousness,
     Where rhyme meets reason with astute success.

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SANITY

       There is a luminance I’ve briefly tasted,
       A synesthetic glory in my brain,
       Informing me a sleeping life is wasted
       And only cosmic consciousness is sane.

       Though we are made for lofty sapience
       And even call ourselves the “doubly wise,”
       We’re often lacking so-called common sense,
       Much less ascending to ethereal skies.

       What will it take to wake us up in time
       To realize the wisdom in our core
       And manifest what’s hidden and sublime,
       Awaiting us behind perception’s door?

            A miracle that dire necessity
            Provokes at last to show true sanity.

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SEEKER

for Ray Bradbury

   A teenager, I doted on S-F,
   Which meant both Speculative Fantasy
   And Science Fiction, two fun ways to ef-
   What seemed ineffable, a mystery:

   What is it that lies out beyond our ken
   Toward the stars, or here in inner space?
   It’s in our deepest consciousness, the yen
   To meet this dim Enigma face to face:

   The Source of everything, the Meaning of
   The universe of our experience—
   Why is there consciousness, why hate, why love,
   And why are we so brilliant and so dense?

        Now, as an elder, has this all come clear?
        I’m seeking still for Meaning to appear.

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HEARTWISE

for Christian de Quincey  

   Our human consciousness will be transformed,
   The chill of hard and selfish egos warmed,
   And Higher Consciousness at last attained
   When our intelligence has grown right-brained.
   Yet in this dangerous age, the left has ruled
   That now, for safety’s sake must be retooled
   And scientism’s sway give way to wise
   Imperatives, with which the heart complies.
   What other wonders may in time be found
   By listening to the right brain’s subtle sound,
   Which comes in dreams and mystic reverie,
   May yet reveal the deepest mystery
   When we unearth the Source, the Ground of Being,
   A cosmic force that’s ultimately freeing.

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