poem sacrifice
66
On my walk to the river,
I happen to look up from the path
To a small rotten tree that had died prematurely;
Lying on top of the stump, at eye level,
Is a dead mangled mouse, clearly
I see his pointed nose with opposed arrays of whiskers.
I see a gash on his side with a little
Red flap contrasting with the disheveled
Gray coat.
I see his little round unseeing eyes, peering
Over the edge.
A sign……but of what?
Jonathan Edwards believed we could
Read God’s thoughts in the book of nature.
What thought was this? A dead mouse in a tree
Like one of Vlad’s heads on a stake warning me
To beware the woods?
Was it a dark offering on a glade’s altar?
Or just a reminder that death is part of the deal
At the start?
Presumably an owl’s moveable feast was disrupted;
And he will return to find his table kicked over
By a self-conscious being’s first fears.
I add the following poem by ee cummings because I was reminded of it when I wrote the poem above. Cummings is among my favorite American poets. I love what he does to word order and even syllable order to give the poem rhythm and shape.
e e cummings collected poems
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E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems, 1904-1962
Price: $31.41
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poem by e e cummings
(Me up at does)
Me up at does
out of the floor
quietly Stare
a poisoned mouse
still who alive
is askingWhat
have i done that
You wouldn't have
ee cummings
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Comments
Beauty is accompanied by loss.
should it always be the case? that you can't have one without the other?
Transience seems to me to be part of the fabric of everything in the world. Patterns emerge, mutate and pass.
if everything is transient as you say, how could a pattern emerge? Or is the pattern the absence of such?
Now that is a hell of a question. I will have to put that in my pipe and smoke it.
ok, but let that be a peace pipe for i'm dropping off of my case LOL now i'm on to more of your poetry. Did I say I'm already a fan?
I do have a lakota peace pipe that my grandmother gave me. So I'll light it up. I suppose your question is the same one that perplexed Plato and the ancients. When I ask myself what doesn't change, I am immediately transported to a contemplation of the light of pure mind. Just not sure what that light is and if it is unchanging. Somehow, in the end I still cling to the notion that it seems to me subjectively that everything changes even if it would also be logically true that something must not be changing in order to perceive that which is changing.
or we can modify your concept of change as used in the last sentence from change that means "replacement" to change that means "growth" or "expansion" thereby avoiding the notion that something is lost along the way of perceiving "that which is changing" (plato be damned!) :D
Hi barranca - as always, a thumbs up for your hub . Always thought provoking, as are the comments.
What if change is just perception and the unchanging is what is?
The view from where we stand versus the view from the top of the hill?
The subjective as against the objective (Ol' Plato had his good points :D)
Thought-provoking poem - and isn't that what poems always should be?
Thanks for the poem and the comments! I am greatly enriched by your sharing.
Love and peace,
Tony
Shalini & Tonymac, Thank you for your responses. I don't know what to think about Plato and idealism. In general it just doesn't seem to match what we know of the world. To reconcile idealism with the world seems to require some version of process theology which, of course, risks identifying God with the Cosmos....although I don't really worry too much about that particular risk myself.
Cris A says:
13 months ago
how sad that the death of one can mean life to another... nice poem :D