Following the Sun:   Descending​
​

Part I: Autumn Sonata

Contents

1.    Do what you love                    
2.    The quest for wisdom                
3.    Through distance, darkly           
4.    To sleep                                  
5.    Praying in words to you            
6.    Decrepitude                     
7.    The wave                    
8.    Was the wave?
9.    Triptych I     
10.   Autumnal collage    


11.    Lightning and reflection        
12.    A wish, a prayer     
13.    To my abba in eternity
14.    Memory and desire
15.    On a pine branch 
16.    Morning on an ash
17.    Schumann’s andante cantabile 
18.    Brahms showed his heart 
19.    Why chamber music?
20.    A sonata in autumn


21.    In honor of Moses 
22.    Nearness of death 
23.    Swindlers?
24.    Reasons not to break away
25.    Over Babi Yar
26.    Reflecting with Whitman
27.    All alone
28.    Old man on a swing
29.    The death chaplain 
30.    On Nietzsche and Whitman


31.    Poet or prophet of democracy?
32.    The naughty boy 
33.    Love of the beautiful 
34.    Not wine and roses
35.    Descending  
36.    Edging the flame
37.    A view from the perch 
38.    Shadows on a wall
39.    For the gods to come
40.    Collected works of art

41.    When the dogs bed down
42.    Making friends with darkness
43.    The erotic draw into death
44.    The fading of night
​

Descending

Part I:  Autumn Sonata
(Fall 2021)


1.    Do what you love

    “Our time is short, amigo;
    do what you love.”
    So my friend José Jesús texted me
    on 21 August 2021.
    Indeed, our time is short.

                    1 Living and dying

    I live with a constant reminder of death
    of the brevity of life and my own mortality
    that I’m nearing the end of my journey here
    soon and very soon to slip into the silence.
    So teaches me the lumbar disc bulge and protrusion
    so teaches me pain preventing sleep at midnight.

    Truly this being-thing is descending towards death.
    And yet I hope to live and to enjoy life
    both on earth and in no-time, in God.
    I may live a few short months or years
    or another sixteen years, matching
    the age of my father when he died.  

    I met José in Babylon on the Potomac
    in the late summer of 1980
    his first year in Washington, my second. 
    We became friends from our first meeting
    and soon grew to be close and constant
    beginning a friendship which has never died.

    “Our time is short, amigo;
    do what you love.”
    Well, José, that raises questions in my mind:
    What do I love that I truly want to do?
    What do I not love in truth that can be let go?
    Am I doing now what I love forever?    

                 2  The probing question

    What do you love?  That question scalpels 
    into the marrow, into who and what 
    one truly is, and who one is not.
    You have many loves, polyphiliac
    coining or unwittingly borrowing a term.
    What do you most love that you may do?

    I love to write, to stretch out my mind to find truth,
    to express it clearly to be understood
    to study, to learn, to question, to think;
    to care for my dogs and myself in little ways
    to love my friends and to help them as I can;
    to provide a living in retirement working on investments. 

    I love to walk and work, moving body through space-time;
    to garden and to enjoy its fruits:  beauty and food.
    Over years I have loved to meditate and to pray
    these activities given less scope recently--
    until the dark time of the year, when God drags me in.
    Still I love to seek It, ever wondering about the divine

    to ask questions that lead towards a more lasting union--
    begun between time and eternity, fulfilled beyond time in eternity;
    and to share the fruits of meditation and writing with others.
    “Do what you love.”  What do I most truly love, my God?
    Surely I love a large variety of music, especially listening to Bach
    and reading good literature, photographing, enjoying nature.

    What do I not love that I am doing now?
    What could be sloughed off, perhaps with growing joy?
    What can be let go, to give more time for what I most enjoy?
    I should gladly be freed of the pain of compressed nerves
    leaving more time, mind, and energy to do what I love:
    to be unfeignedly grateful, remembering with thanksgiving.

                   3  The question of being 

    Pain awakened me after two hours of fitful sleep
    shortly after midnight.  After hobbling-wobbling downstairs
    and as I brewed coffee and took some meds
    an insight insinuated into my mind, 
    sparked in memory as I heard Al Jolson sing
    “Are you lonesome tonight?”

    It was not “lonesomeness” that captured me
    but the thought that the word “are” in the question
    is superfluous.  “Lonesome” implies the verb “to be.”
    Then the thought was generalized:  every verb, noun, adjective
    implies the verb “to be,” because being—to be--
    underlies every action and thing, every verb and noun.

    Everything that is in any way, including any process
    is a function of being:  being is primary to all else.  
    It is not as Sartre wrote in his doctoral exam
    “Existence precedes essence,” but that being--
    the act of to be, esse per se subsistens-- 
    is ever primary and present to all that exists in any way.

    Now, this insight, which seems true, may be faulty.
    I’m no Parmenides, nor Aristotle, nor Thomas
    nor was meant to be, “I’m just an ordinary man,”
    as Henry Higgins sings in “My Fair Lady.”
    An ordinary man who enjoys thinking about reality
    who loves to question and to explore unboundedly

    who knows that he does not know, and has a good idea
    why he does not know as he wishes to know:
    that which he longs to know is present and absent
    always here and there yet never fully accessible
    the all-good, all-wise YHWH, He who is to be itself.
    All of my life in some way is a search for God--
    a search that’s a response to what is moving the search. 

    I am doing what I love, and wish to do it better.
    To the One who is bringing into being, we give thanks.


2.    The quest for wisdom

    When all else is stripped away from my life--
    from its daily activities and necessary tasks
    from various worldly cares and healthful care of body
    from the need to support myself financially 
    from spiritual or religious obligations freely undertaken
    from my still-forming attempts to study and to write
    from personal struggles to grow into who I truly am--

    there remains underneath all of these activities
    a longing for true well-being and childlike trust in God
    a quest for the wisdom that is God’s alone to give
    a desire to allow the divine to break into consciousness
    directly or through the mediation of mystics, prophets
    saints and philosophers who were open to the truth 
    of that which is: the inexhaustible source, the flowing spring 
    that by long tradition is known as “God.”  

    Again and again I will turn to the wisdom of Moses and the Torah
    to the wisdom of Jeremiah, Second-Isaiah, other prophets
    to the wisdom and love of Jesus of Nazareth and his apostles
    to the wisdom of classical Hellas enfleshed in various forms
    culminating in its philosophers who discerned with clarity
    that in the loving pursuit of wisdom they were loving and seeking God
    to the wisdom of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Buddha,
    to the wisdom of Lao-Tse, and to other mystics east and west.

    I want to dedicate myself to studying these seekers of wisdom
    to receive from them what nectar I am able to receive
    to glimpse however fleetingly behind the veil of verbal formulations
    the moving image of the Imageless, who casts no shadow
    the wholly other who is for all beings the ever-present Ehyeh
    the unlimited Lover whose loving still moves the quest
    for wisdom beyond words that ultimately is silently One. 


3.    Through distance, darkly

                      1

    By what words can one articulate
    the ways of eros between two souls?
    The mystery transcends speech, and yet
    the mystery bids lovers seek to understand.  

    Two arrows shot towards each other
    in the night without a guiding light
    flying straight towards they know-not-what
    launched by the hand that stretched the bow strings.

                      2

    As words between them flowed
    the two yielded themselves
    to each other as they believed
    through the strange promptings of eros.  

    They told themselves they felt desire
    an erotic attraction for one another.
    In and through that mutual desire
    the madness of eros was working--
    divine madness overflowing with life.  


4.    To sleep

    To sleep at least at last to rest
    my head drooping down chin on chest 
    and I, exhausted to the core
    await some nerve relief through surgery.

    Am I awake or am I asleep?
    I no longer know for sure
    sitting at my writing table as dreams flit in
    or fleeting images and then I stir again

    Images from the distant past
    from a pain-wrung imagination
    drifting into sleep at last to rest.


5.    Praying in words to You

                      1

    O soul of a being blessed by God
    turn aside a while from your busy thoughts
    give up whatever you now have at hand
    and follow the drawing of the unseen One.

    Sit still in your place of quiet meditation
    and let the darkness of God come upon you
    the refreshing cloud enshrouding all
    in a womb of mysterious unfelt love.

    Enter the inner where no one goes
    but you and that which is there not there
    the One present when felt far away
    the One awaiting your tardy return.

    Enter in below above no where at all
    nothing to grasp no thing to hold
    enter and be at home where you’re alone
    with that which only is all one alone.

                      2

    O LORD my God, the God of Israel
    God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-Israel
    God of Moses—I AM WHO AM--
    God of the prophets of the LORD’s own people:

    To the One unknown but ever sought
    by every soul that comes forth into being
    to You I bow and bring the longings of my heart
    to You I bend the sinews of my stiff neck.

    O God of your chosen receivers everywhere
    through the centuries and in places far apart 
    all are known and drawn by You alone
    into communion with You no-thing that simply is.

                      3

    Give thanks, o my soul, to the holy One of Israel
    give thanks to the creator and perfecter of all.
    Give thanks to that out of which all come forth
    give thanks to that which is leading all home.

    I bring no gift to your altar, LORD, except what you have given:
    I bring to You the little you I am, not in buildings made by hands
    but here alone in the silence beneath my restless heart
    here where you and I become one without destruction.

    I come my God apart from every cult and practice
    apart from the rituals of Israel or of the church
    apart from washings in rivers and from sacred fires
    I come to You “just as I am” in sheer emptiness.

    I come away for I’m a loner, a wanderer into God
    a soul longing to journey into its proper home
    a man a human being an animal a being-thing
    a creature loved by the One who brings forth each.

    Give thanks to YHWH, my soul, and bless his name
    bless all who remember that which is, the God of all
    bless the one who forgets to turn and give thanks--
    render thanks on behalf of each and of all.

                      4

    Bless the LORD, you Soul of my soul
    I of my I, and You in every you.
    Bless and thank the Life of your life
    the being of your being, That which ever is.

    As all is passing, You alone endure 
    ever beyond the currents of change
    of coming-to-be and passing-away--
    You are as you are now and endlessly.

    What does it mean to bless your name
    but to acknowledge You as You forever are
    to let go of all outward externalities
    to gaze quietly into your bottomless pool.

    What does it mean to give You thanks
    but to return to You all that I am, all that I have;
    to set myself at your disposal, You alone
    who are wise and guide all things back to You.

    Bless the LORD, Soul of my soul,
    the one desired in every desire
    loved in every act of loving
    sought in every step and breath
    by a wanderer who’s home is You alone.


6.    Decrepitude

    This is my play’s last scene
    for I have felt and seen
    the final stage of age grown old
    the withering away of life within.

    How long I shall live hereafter
    I know no more than anyone.
    But I have felt in my leg and abdomen
    glutinous death devouring from within.
    
    Old age and death have visited me
    in my seventy-first year on earth.
    Nearly did I lose the use of the left leg
    to bear this aging body on its rounds

    of harried duties and more leisurely walks    
    giving so much while asking so little
    this leg and bladder and bowels
    nearly denied their natural functioning.

    Now for a month or year perhaps a score
    I may creep about quietly and noisily 
    nearly unseen and fortunately overlooked
    as I wend my way to the grave.

    I shall not rage against the dying of the light
    for naked I came forth and naked shall I depart
    and in-between my life has been blessed
    by many a gift and undeserved kindness.  

    Not tomorrow not today but now
    I give heartfelt thanks to the God of life
    who bestows breath on mere clay
    and in whom alone all endure.

    Now in life’s declining golden hour
    after years of youth, then paid employment 
    enjoying the fruits of mine and others’ labors--
    soon will sound the tolling tolling of the bell.

    O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
    For Aurora is the golden hour, Aurora--
    the dawn for those who truly love
    the dawning of unmasked eternity. 


7.    The wave

    The wave that flushed ashore soon dissipates
    seemingly vanishing into mere nothingness
    some water sinking hiddenly into wet sand
    some water receding back into the restless sea
    but gone is the wave, its time ended.

    To what or who abides beyond all human knowing
    to the One most human beings seek as God
    to the greater ocean of unboundedness
    I call, lingering alone on the shifting shore
    waiting for the final silent ebbing away.

    “O LORD, you have shown me my end
    how short is the length of my days;
    Now I know how fleeting is my life…
    And now, LORD, what is there to wait for?
    In You rests all my hope.”

    And the remnants of the wave return to the sea
    out of which it had flowed forth.


8.    Was the wave?

    The wave was and was not:
    we call the motion a wave
    a rising and a falling
    a swelling and a withdrawal
    a moving in and out
    a rushing sound then hush.

    It was a wave, was it not?
    it was not a wave, was it?
    whatever it was, was
    let it be and let it go
    the Ocean abides.


9.    Triptych I 

    Ocean will swallow the land
    and land will emerge from ocean.
    All that I am, love, have
    is passing away.
    What will emerge, I do not know.
    What will be will be.

    On the edge of eternity
    on the edge of the abyss
    I choose to give thanks
    to the One from whom all arise
    to the One who alone endures.

    O man, fellow creature of a day
    prepare yourself to die.


10.    Autumnal collage 

    Much that was good
    some was painful
    some was pleasant
    some aroused anxiety.

    Perhaps I should never have been there
    Perhaps.  There were lessons to learn.
    It is past now, slipped away, downstream.
    See how it floated away?

    Much confusion, many inner woundings
    struggled to be free and at peace.
    What I needed or wanted then
    I neither need nor want now.

    Fragments of memories come to consciousness
    pleasant most of them
    arousing some desire and much gratitude 
    nibbles in life’s bountiful buffet.

 
11.    Lightning and reflection

    Lightening across an open prairie
    struck in a dark quiet moment--
    words as flying arrows piercing me.
    Walls of a cave, imprisoning cell
    seemed to crumble to the ground
    leaving me stunned and exposed.  

    With the rising of the morning sun
    a fuller reality begins to break in.
    Imprisoning caves require years of work
    to be torn down stone after stone;
    and being stunned and exposed
    may be just the beginning of a long ascent
    from self-enclosure to liberation.


12.    A wish, a prayer 

    Grant me, LORD God, before I die
    to love and be loved passionately
    by one good human being.
    Grant me to surrender who I am
    into the hands and heart of a genuine lover.

    Yet wasn’t my abba the true lover of my soul? 
    If not, what was lacking in his love?
    He loved me in truth and integrity
    as he would have loved his own son.
    Grant me, good LORD, a more grateful heart
    to have lived and thrived through a lover’s art.


13.    To my abba in eternity

    Never have I loved anyone as I love you.
    Of course I love my parents, sister, brother,
    but you, Father Daniel, I love with all in me--
    with the good, the bad, the holy spirit
    with an all-too-human, light-darkling spirit.

    You loved me with Christ-like love
    asking nothing in return.
    Now I turn back to you for a favor:
    by the light of the Spirit, guide me.
    That is all I ask:  and we shall fare well.

    Should I make a full break, dear friend 
    from the monastery and from the Church?
    Or after a short respite, should I return?
    That question I pose and pass on 
    and in silence through time I’ll await an answer.  

    What more could you have done for me
    that you did not do thirty-five years ago?
    Nothing of which I am aware;
    you were and are alive with the healer’s art.


14.    Memory and desire

    A wild-driving passion thrives within you
    that you neither understand nor fully control.
    Long has it been named Eros.
    To you, he brings desire, fear, confusion.  
    
    He kissed you--
    you felt the stubble on his upper lip
    “red hot fireball” he called you
    and whispered, “our little secret”


15.    On a pine branch

    Sunlight filtering down to a Scotch pine
    light gently resting on a branch
    shining pine needles.


16.    Morning on an ash

    Even light before sunrise
    leaves and branches trembling
    dancing rocking shaking bowing 
    rhythmically moving together
    kinesis 
    only the grounded sky-piercing trunk
    still and steadfast.


17.    Schumann’s andante cantabile

    Within his E-flat Major Piano Quartet
    Schumann placed a most lovely andante cantabile:
    to hear it, truly to hear it,
    is to have one’s lone heart pierced
    by the agony that beauty bears: 

    Sung first on the mournful ‘cello
    then on the ecstatic violin
    you are left naked and exposed
    and longing for release 
    from beauty’s ravishing.


18.    Brahms showed his heart 

    Was Brahms ever as emotionally honest
    as personally revealing
    as he was in the exquisite Andante 
    of his Third Piano Quartet in c minor?

    Is it a mere coincidence 
    that it bears comparing to Schumann’s andante?
    What young person madly in love
    has not suffered this passion, in some way? 

    Schumann lost his sanity
    and Brahms lost his beloved.
    Or did he not have her for life 
    in a beautiful lasting friendship?


19.    Why chamber music?

                  1  Probing questions

    There are questions one never forgets
    or may not forget, or should not forget--
    a question I cannot forget is what Socrates 
    tells Chaerephon to ask Polus
    in Plato’s Gorgias:  Ask him “who he is.”  

    That is the question.
    St. Augustine’s probing question was
    “What do you love?”  Who you are
    and what you love probe the core of your being.
    From such questions there is no good escape.

    Then there are questions one is asked
    even by a stranger in the course of one’s life:
    some seem trivial, others strip the soul--
    they may tantalize or penetrate,
    utterly apt for you when asked here and now.


                  2  A minister’s question

    Sometimes you are asked a question 
    as if out of the blue, not existentially
    yet the question teases your mind for years.
    One evening a fundamentalist minister in Iowa asked me
    “How did you ever get interested in chamber music?”

    He knew of my interest because I had mentioned Beethoven
    the late string quartets, such mature masterpieces
    and probably Brahms and Bach’s sonatas for violin and harpsichord--
    he may have questioned me about my interests in music
    which have been nourished over year and are far-ranging.

    “How did you ever get interested in chamber music?”
    His question was neither sympathetic nor highly belligerent
    but it displayed mental reserve with my musical tastes.  
    The question was sufficiently barbed to sink in
    and to remain in me the past thirty years.

    “How did you ever get interested in chamber music?”
    How does one not get interested in chamber music
    an enormous genre containing so many magnificent compositions?
    Each part in chamber music is exposed
    allowing one to hear each instrument as well as the ensemble.  

    The structure of composition often shines forth
    openly, transparently in chamber music
    as in black and white photography
    light more fully revealed against black
    the skeletal form not obscured by rich-splendid colors.


                  3  Early interests

    How did I become interested in chamber music?
    We did not listen to it in our home
    although my sister played the piano.
    Much of my early musical experience was in concerted music
    as in symphonies or symphonic poems, or in pop.

    The first chamber compositions to attract my attention
    arrived on records I bought as a freshman in college:
    Beethoven’s Die Grosse Fuge came first--
    I liked Bach fugues on the organ, and Beethoven’s symphonies,
    so I took a chance and tried this quartet composition.  

    Now the point of departure on my journey into chamber music
    seems a little strange, even laughable
    as one would be hard pressed to find a more demanding
    more exacting composition to appreciate as a novice
    than “the Great Fugue” Beethoven composed late in life.

    And yet from the opening bars into the first intense exposition
    I was captivated, intellect and feelings, 
    caught up in the extraordinary genius that is Beethoven.
    Now it seems obvious that one who loved Bach’s counterpoint
    would feel strangely out of place yet at home in Die Grosse Fuge.  

    Also in my 18th-19th years I explored other chamber compositions:
    a few Mozart string quartets (especially “the Dissonance” in C),
    Schubert’s Octet, Beethoven’s Septet, then came Brahms--
    Piano Quartets, Trios; and Bach’s violin and harpsichord sonatas,
    a few Haydn string quartets, then those of Bartok.

    In chamber pieces, one discovers some lovely melodies
    sonorous harmonies, fascinating rhythms
    intricate or straight-forward structural compositions
    and of course some outstanding musician-performers.
    What is there not to enjoy in such music?

    Why chamber music?  Why music?  
    Why sounds?  Why not silence?
    Why not silence?  In time, God’s time.


20.    A sonata in autumn   

                  1  Out of silence

    In the beginning is silence--
    that out of which speech and music emerge
    silence that remains the canvas
    on which a sonata is painted--
    still silence nourishing beauty, meaning, depth.

    Music sounding in and with silence--
    listening a dialectic between silence and sound
    between sounds heard and those awaited
    by a mind attending both to notes heard
    and to those emerging now out of silence.

    Often a dramatic or lyrical introduction
    to prepare the listening mind for the sonata
    taking form sound by sound
    notes following notes, pause after pause
    the mind beginning to know patterns in the flow.

    Patterns in sound conceived by the composer
    recognized and ordered by the musicians
    perceived or not by the listener
    patterned sounds in organized waves
    moving through the media of time, minds, silence.
        
                  2  Ongoing development

    An intended recognizable pattern of sounds
    a theme, often dramatic or tense
    followed by a contrasting lyrical theme
    in the dominant or same key, or relative minor--
    themes communicating mind to mind

    from intellect to intellect, feelings to feelings:
    without patterned sounds and distinct themes
    there’s merely sounds, noise, chaos;
    the conscious listener discriminates,
    recognizes themes, soon enjoyed or not--
    
    mere acquaintances or friends in sounds
    performed by musicians, by fellow human beings
    who express their consciousness through the sounds.
    Perhaps or necessarily from the moment patterns begin
    they undergo changes, additions, developments.

    Usually there is a formal development section
    but in reality all is change, becoming, development
    from silence to first notes to patterns to repetitions--
    each sound developing from what preceded
    each sound preparing for what is coming.

                  3.  Union through music 

    A true musician becomes one with the music--
    as it is being produced by humans and instruments--
    as it is sounding through ears into minds;
    the musical—composer, performers, listeners--
    becoming united through the Muse’s art.

    The active listener who is mentally engaged
    who enters into the sounds perceived
    hears, attends, discerns with a mind
    that analyzes, examines, thinks about
    as well as senses, feels, intuits--

    Music engages the entire person
    of the composer, the musician-performers
    the active listener—body, mind, soul--
    art as ordered flow from dynamic energy
    mind carried by music out of silence to mind.

    Music the sacred craft of the Muses
    the nectar of the Olympian gods
    beauty enfleshed in ordered sounds
    uniting composers, musicians, listeners
    In an experience of transforming energy

    that is the spring and autumn of the spirit
    leading psyche to the border of transcendence
    guiding a human being home through death.


21.    In honor of Moses 

    To the One which let its presence be known
    to Moses on Mount Sinai
    transforming the fugitive shepherd
    into the leader of the Hebrew people:
    
    With gratitude on this day
    21 September 2021 
    when my faithful dog Moses of Lone Willow
    has completed fourteen years on earth--

    I call him Mousi, the Moose, Scotty
    but this time-traveled dog is Moses
    named for the wise shepherd of the people 
    who forged the covenant between God and man.

    How can one justly praise a dog?
    Examine the letters in a mirror 
    and dog reflects the god whose image he bears
    shining in and through a humble creature.

    Day by day Moses is making his exodus
    and where he goes, soon I shall follow
    and Elijah, Moses’ younger understudy
    as every creature returns to our Source.
​
​
22.    Nearness of death 
    
     “Keep death daily before your eyes.”  
        --Rule of St. Benedict, 4:47

     “Cowards die many times before their deaths;
        the valiant never taste of death but once.
        Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
        it seems to me most strange that men should fear
        seeing that death, a necessary end,
        will come when it will come.”
        —Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, II, ii.


    The play’s final act is unfolding
    though perhaps not its last scene.
    From the moment the tale began
    it was moving towards its end.
    
    “Every poem an epitaph.”  
    Every step, every word
    each moment a little closer 
    to the ground, to your end in time.

    How can one sufficiently thank the creator
    for bringing this creature into being?
    How can one best live and serve
    in the moments, hours, days remaining?

    You did not have to be, nor did anything--
    life is sheer gratuity
    a gift to be ever unfolded
    and ever given away in love.

    Without love, we are raucous songs;
    through love, we are partners in divine music.
    Apart from love, no meaning or purpose--
    with love, each finds its meaning. 

    You know well that death is coming
    inescapably and usually sooner
    than you expected or wanted
    and yet it is ever near at hand.

    Watching the death of one we love
    is a painful, drawn-out process
    as life forces slowly ebb away:
    sorrowful watching your loved one die.

    My friend Bob texted to me this evening:
    "I think Moses is getting close to the end;
    sorry but it happens to us all.
    He does mean so much to me.”

    Moses cried for me three times 
    in the one o’clock hour this morning
    seemingly restless or in distress.
    He quieted down as I showed tenderness

    and fell asleep
    the likeness of death
    sleep—at times a restorer of life
    as death may be 

    falling asleep into death
    never to awake
    being nothing except in no thing. 
    
    
23.      Swindlers? 

    Granted my ingrained bias against groups:
    to the degree that they are close-knit
    closed to examination and scrutiny
    groups are in effect mini-cult-communities
    unhealthy worlds thriving on group-think--
    proud, arrogant, hostile to questioning.

    Academic departments were unhealthy 
    and often unpleasant places to work.
    So many professors professing to know--
    when in truth they may know little worthwhile.
    These men and women receive high salaries
    to act as if they have knowledge worth dispensing.

    The most diseased groups in which I have shared
    are ghettos of Catholic clergymen--
    vowed religious and diocesan priests.
    After years of living and working among them
    I felt disrespected, diminished, unwanted
    because I’m not willing to live their lies.

    In each group there are outstanding exceptions--
    good men who are worth knowing who’ve risen 
    above the communal shameful game.
    Such men are few and often hard to find
    generally obscure and not representative
    of the community in which they function.

    Many ordained, I believe, are swindlers--
    diocesan priests and bishops, many male religious
    and a wide array of Protestant ministers too.  
    They thrive on largesse and appearances
    and generally are not what they seem.
    Often these men exude arrogance and pride

    the utter opposites of what they have professed.
    Often they are like enrobed parasites
    living on the wealth and generosity of others.
    Never have I met men so resistant to change
    to self-examination and self-criticism
    as I found in monastic communities.

    Several beliefs nourish arrogance among clergy
    often proclaimed assertively by priests insisting:
    “The priest is alter Christus, another Christ” 
    not realizing how self-deceived they are.
    “Jesus was not ordained anything,” I said,
    but that fell on thickly waxed, self-enclosed ears.

    Laity create a major problem among clergy--
    “The faithful” when deficient in faith foolishly treat 
    their priests and ministers as if they are Christ himself.
    Their childish adulation and idolatrous adoration  
    helped to create and maintain the Behemoth 
    of pompous pretense that is the Catholic priesthood.  

    About such clergy, a bishop spoke truth to me:
    “They feel entitled to steal from parishioners.”
    One Friday in Lent I was invited out to dinner
    with a group of priests, who ordered lobster
    crab legs and other delicacies using parish funds.
    I questioned how such luxuries fit Lent

    and one and all criticized me as ignorant
    because church law says, “Do not eat meat”
    so they are eating lobster, halibut, crab--
    which they did not catch, cook, or pay for--
    while sticking parishioners with their buttered bills.
    Smugly and self-assuredly they “kept the law.”

    I said to these black-shirted rotundas:
    “Would it not be more in the spirit of Lent
    to eat a humble hamburger
    than to fatten up on expensive sea-food?”
    They all vigorously disagreed
    and never invited me to dine with them again.


24.    Reasons not to break away

    You took vows, promising to be faithful.
    All walks of life entail hardships unforeseen.
    The future is unknown; a final break 
    could not be undone, possibly to your regret.

    One need neither break nor fare forward;
    respect one’s psychic need for clarity
    that comes with peace during a time of healing.
    And all the time keep this in mind:
    “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

​
25.    Over Babi Yar
         (29 September 2021, 80th anniversary of the mass murder)

    “Over Babi Yar no monument.”
    Over Chicago and Los Angeles
    over Cleveland and White Plains
    over the posh suburbs of DC
    there’s no monument.
    And yet, so many deaths
    So many brutal killings.

    In no way do I detract or distract
    from the atrocities against the Jewish people
    old and young, men and women
    stripped naked and murdered 
    by National Socialists with their assistants--
    Ukrainian nationals who hated Jews.
    How many of the Nazis were baptized Catholics?
    How many were Lutherans in church attendance
    and Nazis in their devoted hatreds?
    How many Ukrainian co-murderers 
    were Orthodox or who knows what?
    You machine-gunned them down
    these innocent Jewish people
    simply because they were Jews--
    the Chosen People of God.
    
    There is a monument over Babi Yar
    and over every Dachau, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen:
    the monument that’s visible to eyes of faith.
    These are the children of God you murdered
    in your hatred for the Creator and his people.
    You have made into the Holocaust
    another crucifixion of Christ written in the blood of thousands:
    what the Romans did to one Jewish preacher
    you have done to the children of Israel--
    “Crucify him, crucify them, wipe them from the earth.”

    “Any man’s death diminishes me
    because I am involved in Mankind.”
    And the death of the child diminishes me
    and the infant in its mother’s womb
    killed before it could see the light of day.
    Many there are who are murdered
    and many just walk by
    so many just want what’s “convenient.”

    “O my people, what have I done unto you?
    and how have I wearied you? 
    Answer me!”


26.   Reflecting with Whitman

                      1 Not Whitman’s America

    As a boy I, too, could hear America singing
    and her songs deeply echoed in my soul
    forming me with their varied notes and rhythms.  
    I had no doubt that America and I were one
    even as millions of peoples were one with America
    and we were one people in history
    and self-consciously “one nation under God.”

    The death of John F Kennedy in 1963
    the horrendous assassination of our President
    was a turning point not only in my life 
    but in the history and self-consciousness of America 
    as we were forced suddenly and painfully
    to see ourselves in a vastly different light--
    Violence and hatred brewing beneath the surface
    cruelty as well as compassion in our hearts.
    Still I could hear America singing
    but shouting often drowned out our dirges and songs
    for we had become fractured, torn, disassembled.  

    The horrendous murder of President Kennedy
    then Dr. Martin Luther King, then Senator Bobby Kennedy
    served as a tempestuous prelude to the murder of ourselves
    our innocence, our culture, our way of life
    our naïveté perhaps and our youthfulness.
    America became hated as Amerika 
    filled with loud and noisy songs, screeching
    rather than blessed silence, violence everywhere
    at least in numerous cities destructively burning
    children filled with distrust and dissatisfaction
    dis-eased and disgusted with their parents
    with our country the world the whole universe.

    America:  the disorganized, the chaotic, the violent
    seething with poisonous ideologies and beliefs
    increasingly deaf to the wonders of nature
    and the over-arching truth of nature’s God.
    We the people became a rebellious, unhappy people
    and the ones who suffered most were the young
    whose souls and minds absorbed the sicknesses
    becoming increasingly unattuned to reality
    immersed in ersatz religions and second realities;
    often boozed up or dropped out on drugs;
    thinking ourselves wise, we became childish fools
    considering ourselves divine we nourished the demonic.
    America had much the character of a gross insane asylum
    and we the people, you and I, were soul inmates
    imprisoned in a decaying culture of death.

    Since those years when everything of value was torn down
    mocked, ridiculed, laughed at, despised, desprized
    we may have mellowed out a short while, a brief breath
    but then armed by Marxist and Positivist ideologies of Europe
    the leading intoxicating Gnosticisms of the day 
    from their universities to ours and into our culture
    flowed a more coherent seemingly learned destructive mind
    seeking to “transform the world” as Marx had promised
    a kind of alchemy of reality from base metals into gold.
    So much was hoped for and promised, and so little delivered.
    The dreams of the foolish haters and deniers of reality
    have little good or truth to offer anyone
    but power to gain, “the world to change”--
    not in reality at all, just solely in their highfalutin rhetoric
    and their ideologically-intoxicated minds.  
    So many deceived, so many dying or dead souls
    so many minds drugged and poisoned by dreams and lies.


                      2.  Stand aside!

    How can one fittingly sing America any more?
    What songs could possibly harmonize with who we are?
    A song of puss flowing from infected wounds?
    A song of pretense and of social posturing
    of grasping for power after power ending only in death?
    
    Ah, nature, you have your ways, often confounding us.
    Your beauty by night and by day we may mar
    deny or seek to destroy, but you far transcend us.
    How small and insignificant our big shots are
    we are, we who have fallen in dis-grace.

    Some in our midst would destroy the universe 
    if only they could, but in reality, they cannot.
    How small and insignificant we the people really are
    how foolish and stupid our self-selected “elected” leaders;
    pretending to be great, we have become spiritual dwarfs.

    How does an old man live in a world torn apart?
    How can one seek and keep his sanity
    living in the midst of a people drugged by vanities and insanities?
    What is one to do in a world of chaos and mass deceptions
    except to withdraw from the turbulence, and let the storms pass by.

    I will sit in silence alone far from the madding crowds.
    I will seek to avoid all interactions with their social-political diseases.
    I will open my mind and heart to the beauties of nature
    the wonders of reality as it truly is and has been 
    and the greatest wonder who is the Lord of all.

    Stand aside, and let the dismal graffiti-filled train pass by.
    Stand aside, and tune out the slogans and false claims
    the games of the wealthy and powerful seeking ever more.
    Stand aside and find your homeland not here any more
    but in the heart of God who is the heart of the world as well.
            

                      3. Two “visions” of America

    Now I shall sing a sweeter song, sitting and standing apart
    listening not to the money-lubricated crud socially generated
    but to the songs of the lovers of wisdom mostly long gone
    now living and alive to those who will to listen.

    With neither the sharp and disciplined intellect of a philosopher
    nor the musical and all-embracing soul of a poet
    In this last season of my life I write for the mind
    to find peace and truth and beauty beneath and in it all.

    You heard America singing, Walt, when its songs still had beauty
    a joy of life, an expansiveness of spirit, some waywardness
    but you listened and you heard, you were attuned 
    to your people and their myriads of busy activities.

    Your vision of America is not mine, nor is America
    of the 21st century the same as America of the 19th.
    The more freedom-drenched and egalitarian society you knew 
    has given way to a nascent and unrecognized totalitarianism

    dominated by elites who claim to know the truth
    who “know” that they are the wave of the future, the bringers
    of a new era, a “new world order,” a “transformed world”
    dominated and controlled by magical-scientistic knowers.

    Walt my friend, you had your own dose of gnosis
    possibly learned from self-divinized Emerson, or from Quakers;
    but another voice also sings in many of your poems--
    a more sane and sober voice, not gnostic-prophetic but poetic.


                      4.  Whitman’s call to be a poet 

    Whitman’s poetic vision is broad, sweeping, adventurous
    his formulations not intended to be philosophically precise
    but take into account the profusions and extrusions of lived life
    rather than force reality into sterile and fixed intellectual categories.

    The range of his poetry is impressively vast.
    When first I began to read him around age twenty
    I found him shocking, often bawdy, self-absorbed 
    and although poetic, also spiritually strange, even diseased.  

    Fifty years later, at seventy, having returned to Whitman
    from time to time over the years, and especially 
    since retiring several years ago, he appears quite differently:
    I’ve become far more patient with his excesses

    and appreciative of the scope of his vision, as well as 
    his sheer poetic genius—at best, perhaps America’s finest.
    When I was thirty, an erudite and gentlemanly monk
    Fr. Thomas Fahy, recommended that I study the poem

    “Out of the cradle endlessly rocking” in his “Leaves of Grass.”
    I gave it a read then but understood little in those days
    largely because I was baffled by Whitman’s poetic language.
    Still, Fr. Thomas had a most discerning eye for quality.

    After hours of reading and studying, in all of the “Leaves”
    “Out of the cradle” has become my favorite poem 
    partly for its poignancy and poetic beauty
    also because here Whitman explores the origins

    and hence nature of his call to become a poet, America’s poet;
    in his remembered experiences on the shore of Long Island
    he explores what engendered his two great themes—both central
    to the genius of Whitman, as to many poets:  love and death.

    Some of the particular formulations in “Out of the cradle”
    are exquisitely expressed, and earn Whitman high praise
    as a poet in America, for America, for the world.
    To the male mockingbird that lost his mate, Whitman cries:

        “Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,)
        Is it indeed toward your mate you sing?  or is it really to me?
        For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, 0—now I have heard you,
        Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,
        And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder and
            more sorrowful than yours,
        A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.”

    Other than self-absorbed, self-referential experience here--
    not so unusual in a child, perhaps—the sense of having his poetic soul
    awakened through the mockingbird’s singing to and for his dead mate 
    is touching indeed, even if an adult’s partially fanciful account of his calling.   

    That is the self-designated formative experience of the poet
    the moment when, as he writes, “I know what I am for, I awake…”
    Death and love were so powerful and entwined in that experience 
    that they kept pouring out their depth and beauty to this poet’s songs.

    Whitman relates the carol of love and death sung by the mockingbird
    to the explicit song of death he hears the same night from the sea
    in effect validating the experience and interpretation of his poetic calling:

        Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?…
        Whereto, answering, the sea…
        Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death,
        And again death, death, death, death…
    
        My own songs awakened from that hour…”


27.    All alone

    Not much noise is stirring from the noisy world
    dogs resting quietly with the setting of the sun
    no tech devices distracting the mind
    Canada geese flying, wind blowing near the river
    ash and cherry plum leaves falling singly, slowly
    and I’m sitting alone beneath trees with body
    mind, thoughts, and a soothing lack of emotion.

    When one is alone and not encrowded 
    with ample space and time to enjoy one’s solitude
    this is the kairos, the critical moment—not for action
    but to be aware of being alone and also a partner
    a member of the Kosmos that is itself in and out of time
    timeless and bottomless and breathless
     yet a living whole, what Goethe called die lebendige Natur--
    alone and perhaps only alone can a human being
    find himself not lost, but rooted and grounded in All.

            “I did not have to be”

    I was standing alone in our backyard
    near Pearl Harbor on Oahu
    between a hedge of hibiscus and citrus trees
    under a bright sky with a naked-hot sun
    a fourth grade student then, so about ten
    and as I thought to myself, I realized
    an apparent contrast between the sun and me.

        “The sun was here before I was born
        and the sun will be here after I die.
        The sun is always here, but I am not--
        I did not have to be.”

    With the clear realization that “I did not have to be”
    rather than be overcome with “existential Angst” or dread
    I felt gratitude for the gift of life, for being--
    for “existing” borrowing a term I learned years later.  
    The sun simply is—a symbol then of the eternal--
    but I’m a transitory being that did not have to be
    and a time was coming, as I was aware
    when I would be no more—gone forever.

    In this experience there was no calling to be a poet
    (or surely none that I ever perceived) 
    but a grounding sense of my place within the Whole
    that in the right conditions, with good nourishment
    becomes a foundation for the search for wisdom.
    Anyone who thinks that s/he had to be
    is laughably lacking in any wisdom whatsoever.  
    And “the search for truth begins with one’s awareness
    of existence in untruth,” as one philosopher wrote.


28.      Old man on a swing 

    A white-haired man, suspenders and beard
    sits amidst deciduous trees in early autumn
    slowly intermittently dropping their leaves
    brilliant yellow leaves on trees reflecting sunlight
    branches moving rhythmically, leaves fluttering
    as leaf after leaf is released to the breezes.

    Sitting still and alone on his wooden bench swing
    as young boys bounce a ball and shoot baskets
    in the yard behind him talking and playing
    a radio sounding music no one hears. 
    Leaves descending singly downward to earth
    for a brief respite until enlivened by autumnal winds.


29.    The death chaplain 

    Not a dresser of wounds, nor a wounded healer
    but a middle-aged chaplain sent to minister to the dying
    in cancer wards, intensive care, a large emergency room
    neo-natal intensive care, a cardiac care unit--
    visiting from patient to patient, room after room
    on seven floors of the huge Naval Medical Center, San Diego
    to console, to touch, to offer a prayer, quietly to be present--
    with and for a fellow human being passing from here 
    into the arms of death—into the longing and patient arms of death.  

    Death seems to follow wherever I go—named “the death chaplain”
    as I precede the rounds of death stopping by bed after bed. 
    This old sailor was a radioman on the USS Nevada on December 7th, 1941
    that “day of infamy,” now tormented by recurring nightmares.
    Another fellow had his leg amputated, and gangrene had set in 
    the room reeking of infection, puss, and imminent death.
    And then Joe Condon, sailor, husband, father of fifteen
    who told me that he wanted to meet a monk before he died.
    We met, we grew close, and we were all together as death claimed him.

    Did I truly minister to these dying men and women at all?
    Did they not much more minister to me and to their families
    showing us how to live and how to die?
    That elderly Lutheran man, who had been a heavy smoker
    now bravely dying of lung cancer and filled with faith
    only to be drugged up so much that he fell into death
    crazed by drug-hallucinations, rather than with a prayer on his lips
    as those tending him could not stand to see him suffer:
    death day after day death with its stark finalities.


30.      On Nietzsche and Whitman

    Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and Walt Whitman’s poetic persona
    have much in common, more than superficial similarities.
    Presently I will not offer a thorough comparison between them
    but focus on the underlying spiritualities,
    the self-consciousness of the men as displayed in writing.

    Each man writes as if he is the true herald of the future
    the one who knows the future sufficiently 
    to usher it in through his prophetic poetry.
    Both fell silent at about the same time--
    one slipped into death, the other into an inner void.

    Although going silent over two decades before the Great War--
    Wilson’s Gnostic-irrational “war to end all war”--
    Whitman and Nietzsche both sensed and prognosticated 
    on the magnitude, the vast scale, of what was coming--
    Nietzsche more realistic, cautious; Whitman naively optimistic.

    Each man presented himself as the knower of the future
    the one who truly discerned historical patterns
    and could see and feel what was coming upon the world.
    Their claims were extreme, yet in retrospect
    each sensed or imagined much that most men overlooked.

    Each man was attuned, not to God, but to himself
    and saw himself as an embodiment of the future
    even before future time unfolded.
    Whitman the democrat writ large for a democratic world
    Zarathustra the forerunner replacement for the murdered God.

    Much more than this I do not wish to write
    for Nietzsche and Whitman lead one into bizarre worlds
    that in truth are unhealthy places to dwell--
    especially in their certainty of being in some sense God
    a common and diseased course not worth pursuing.

    In the case of both men, I prefer their poetry
    in its expressive power and poetic brilliance 
    to the foolishness and self-deceptions of their gnosis.  
    There’s a time to appreciate the truth and beauty in a poet
    and a time to analyze and diagnose, if real, his spiritual disease.


31.    Poet or prophet of democracy?

    The optimism and naïveté of American democracy 
    surfaced early yet gradually in our history.
    Suffice it for the present to note that Whitman
    was above all a self-declared prophet of democracy.
    Nietzsche was too intelligent and learned
    to allow himself addictions to popular mass politics
    and surely to none in which “the herd” ascends.

    What would Whitman be without American democracy
    or without his beliefs in the goodness and value
    of our democratic way of life, triumphing over all?
    Perhaps more than any other 19th-century voice
    Whitman extols democracy unchecked and uncontrolled.
    For Walt was to a large extent a libertine soul himself
    and saw democracy as delivering freedom from all restraints.

    Whitman is worth reading to understand better
    the American exaltation of democracy--
    in his exuberance one may discern
    what this poetic singer does not admit:
    that democracy can be, and often is, self-destructive.
    Whitman is best read for his memorable poetry
    rather than for his Gnostic-democratic ideology.

    The Whitman of “Out of the cradle endlessly rocking”
    and of “When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d”
    is far better than a poet of democracy
    far better than a self-absorbed Gnostic ideologue
    more or less of the Emersonian-Transcendentalist variety.
    In his outstanding songs, Whitman has bequeathed to America
    perhaps our finest, most naturally poetic voice.


32.    The naughty boy

    He was in our class at PS 15 in Crestwood, New York,
    where I attended for fifth and sixth grades
    having two teachers, Miss Bradley and Miss Stevenson
    the most memorable teachers I ever had.
    I loved, revered, learned much from both women.

    In my fifth grade class was a naughty boy
    about whom I would tell my mother 
    when I got home from school.
    With some details, the boy’s antics were recounted
    and especially punishments received for misbehavior
    from Miss Bradley, who was in school to teach
    and who brooked no classroom disruptions.

    This boy could not sit still in class
    he fidgeted, and worst of all, talked out of turn
    to one student sitting nearby or another.
    I remember he liked to talk to Stephen Petersen
    a beautifully behaved, tranquil blond boy
    son of a Norwegian shipping magnate, I believe.
    I even told my mother about the old bat--
    the baseball bat Miss Bradley used on occasion
    when a boy was too unruly, and needed a taste.
    She was never violent with us, but made her point:
    “Be quiet, or worse will surely befall you.”

    Some Saturday Miss Bradley and my mother worked together
    at Asbury Methodist church, perhaps for a funeral
    or for some church function or benefit beyond recall.
    What I remember is that my mother told Miss Bradley
    about the naughty boy of whom her son would often speak
    and how this little boy kept getting into trouble with the teacher.
    According to my mother, Miss Bradley solemnly said to her
    “Mrs. McKane, that `naughty boy’ is your son, Bill.”


33.    Love of the beautiful

        The vision of Beauty prepares a soul to die in peace.

    What would life be like, I wonder
    without an informed love of the beautiful?  
    Would not human life itself be dull and drab 
    without Beauty’s enrichments and inspirations?
    Answers are heard and seen daily all around us
    in the coarse and undisciplined tastes of many
    in a disordered society deformed by poor education
    mass and social media—often a swirling cesspool—         
    and the ludicrous cult of pampered celebrities
    many of whom boast of their degeneracies.
    Our culture is more ugly than beautiful or noble.

    What would my life be like, I’ve often wondered
    without my persistent love of the beautiful--
    without what Raffaela Gherardi called
    my strong “senso estetico”?
    when I was a naive twenty-two year old
    studying with her in southern Bavaria.

    Although I often appreciate what’s functional
    in a garage, a kitchen, an automobile, a store
    in the rooms of my house where time seems to cease--
    where I read, write, quietly reflect, or listen to music 
    it is beauty that prevails, not functionality--
    beauty showing up in every direction I turn.  

    Sitting in my den and looking around as I write
    I see two artistic photographs taken and printed by my father
    pottery made by Navahos, a hand-made bowl from Dakota
    an ikon of the Apostle Paul, a photo of Robert E Lee
    an early Italian Renaissance painting of Jesus crowning Mary
    symbolizing the deification of human being by God 
    and the resulting marriage between them
    a well-matted and framed copy of the Desiderata 
    a circular stained-glass piece made for me by Sarita
    depicting the burning bush on Mount Sinai
    English ivy stretching itself out in various directions
    and cut flowers past their prime but adding color
    an antique drop-leaf oak table on which I’m writing 
    two straight-backed leather-seated oak chairs
    and three tall wooden cases filled with my favorite books
    a knotty-pine paneled ceiling with large cross beams
    old Moses sleeping before me on his memory-foam dog bed
    and playing quietly for us on two Apple speakers
    the exquisite Larghetto from Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet--
    (ah, Mozart, with your acute and highly developed senso estetico
    so generously shared with your fellow “creatures of a day”).

    What would my life be without my love of the beautiful
    without the enjoyment and pursuit of beauty as it presents itself 
    without my desire to be immersed in beautiful art and music
    and to read beautiful literature?  What else demands my attention 
    in photography except my vision of beauty in nature (with frequent
    photos of my dogs, whose souls manifest the beautiful to me).

    Does the love of the beautiful show up in my choice of friends?
    Yes, if one understands that beauty in a human being 
    is not confined to the outer form or the skin but includes 
    the person’s character, the soul, and who they truly are; 
    in that sense, I desire to have and cherish friends
    who are truly good human beings--kalos k’agathos--
    beautiful and good inside and outside
    in form, in truthful speech, and in good deeds.

    Not since studying Plato’s Republic at age twenty-two
    have I thought of the beautiful as substantially subjective.
    That which is truly beautiful is such whether one thinks so or not.
    And that which is beautiful has the power to draw a soul
    from the transitory to that which is complete and eternal.
    By the love of the beautiful a soul ascends into God.

    Ultimately truth, goodness, beauty, and oneness
    are characteristics of what we call “God,” of reality transcending
    human velleity and imagination, beyond our pettinesses.
    That which is truly beautiful manifests the divine to the soul--
    in other terms, beauty reveals divinity as present.
    Of that I have conviction that grounds and nourishes my life.

    Despite Goethe’s profound chorus mysticus
    it is not “das Ewig Weibliche” that leads me on;
    it is the eternally beautiful within its abundant manifestations
    that draws me on and in, lifts my spirits, fills me with hope
    and largely guides how I spend my remaining time.
    As I grow old and feeble, I intensely hope and wish
    that I will not be immersed in ugly noise and low-quality music
    
    but in Bach, in Mozart, in Beethoven, in the music that I love
    because it presents to my mind and heart the divine breaking in
    through well-ordered and profoundly beautiful music.
    And I would far rather be facing the sky above and the vast sea 
    then penned up in a room with crud-studded television
    or discontented and malformed human beings 
    who hate beauty and beauty’s God--
    who do not live with grateful hearts for all they received.

    One may ask, “If beauty matters so much to you
    why are your poems prosaic, and not more beautiful?”
    That’s a fair question.  When it comes to words—to logos--
    truthfulness matters far more than lovely words and phrases.
    Would you not prefer the homely truth from Socrates
    to lovely poetic fictions from some feel-good story-teller?
    Is not straight-forward insight better than forced meter and rhyme? 
    “Yes, but why write poetry at all?  Why not prose that seeks the truth?”
    That may come, but poetic form enforces a condensation of thought
    and rewards the effort to write clearly and understandably.
    Behind loose words and overly detailed verbiage the many hide.

    Listen again to the aforementioned Larghetto by Mozart:
    in such lovely and well-ordered melodies and harmonies
    the mind of the attentive listener becomes so sated and pacified
    that the inner person is carried in spirit to the border of death
    and at that moment is willing—may even desire—to die
    surrendering all into the bosom of boundless Beauty.


34.    Not wine and roses

    Thankful to be living, to be relieved of nerve pain
    to have my companions Moses and Elijah with me daily 
    but a dying old dog presents challenges.
    Moses naps off and on during the day, and is restless all night
    beginning around sunset, continuing at least until I rise
    somewhere a little either side of midnight.
    The old fellow drinks water in the night, waking me up
    as I’m a light sleeper, attuned to any sound from him;
    not infrequently he slips a few times in the hall, unable to rise
    and cries out to me to assist him, which I promptly do.

    The dying process places demands on love.
    To love is to assist another being into death.
    Would that we all realized that every creature is dying
    and allow that realization to condition our actions.
    Moses is dying, I am dying, and even Elijah
    not quite five and full of energy, is dying.
    To be alive is to be moving towards death;
    to live is be dying.  That is “part of the deal.”
    Still, the creature struggles, clinging to life
    which is by its nature good and often enjoyable.
    The will to live is far greater and more pervasive
    than the will to power that Nietzsche found everywhere. 
    Without the will to live, there could be no will to power.
    The creature by nature desires to live, and to live well.

    These may not be, are not, “days of wine and roses”
    but after Moses has died, I will be thankful to have loved him
    thankful for our friendship extending already fourteen years.
    I will treasure the way he gazes into my eyes to read me--
    and the way his look can burn my conscience to do better--
    the way he has always “smelled the roses,” stopping to ponder
    examining a plant or scenery or another creature up close.
    I’ve never known a dog as contemplative as Moses has been--
    ever a model of patience, meekness, utter gentleness
    even as he suffers in his aging body.

    Mazel tov, Moshe, my friend,
    you are far better than wine and roses.
    Next year in Jerusalem!

        —11 October 2021


35.    Descending

    I’m descending into the netherworld
    the never world of the unknown
    a world not world, neither time nor space
    no place no where, no utopia there--

         “the undiscovered country from whose bourn 
         no traveller returns…”

    By day one descends into a haze of uncertainties
    into an ever-returning condition of knowing unknowing
    in a world becoming ever more unfamiliar
    in a world becoming yet stranger to this passing stranger.

    By night one descends into a different dream world
    in which one is and is not 
    much happens and yet does not happen
    as all becomes fluid in a vast ocean of dreaming.

    You descend into the self to find no self at all
    but figments and fragments of your imagination
    that do not bear inspection or examination
    becoming ever less real as one truly searches.

    You descend through the labyrinth of memory
    and find that what you thought happened, did not--
    or not in the ways you had assumed
    and perhaps not to you at all but to not-you.

    To write is to descend into an unknown world
    not primarily of words and phrases and thoughts
    but of reality that remains largely unattainable 
    as one pursues truth in this shadowland world.

    Soon I must descend into the silence of sleep
    a silence filled with sounds I do not hear
    but which somehow take hold of me
    and lead me into undiscovered, unknown realms.

         “The way up and the way down
         one and the same.”


36.    Edging the flame 

    Why did a boxelder bug 
    light upon the burning candle--
    a candle two inches across
    so he climbed along the edge 
    an inch away from a wavering flame?
    Warmth, adventure, ignorance 
    suicide or just plain stupidity?
    He crawled along the edge of death.

    I rescued the fellow from the flame
    by flipping him onto the floor
    before carrying the candle into my den.
    Lo and behold, again he appeared
    the boxelder bug edging the flame.
    Again I flipped him down to the floor
    then wrapped him in a winding sheet
    and lowered him into the disposal.  

    Will he rise like Rasputin from the drain?
    Will he return to edge the candle
    to lick the flickering flame of death?
    Or has he returned to the “potency of matter”?
    Does it matter at all?
    Yes, his death seems untimely
    but he displayed a strange foolishness
    or some unfathomable desire--
    a will to die, or to flaunt death?  
​

​37.    A view from the perch 

    Rhythmical movements of limbs and leaves
    swaying of trees above their waists;
    branches fairly bare of purple and gold
    and a question re-emerges:  have I grown old?

    The end of all life lies beyond mortal sight
    and so does the length of one’s span of days;
    yet I think and feel the Rubicon’s been crossed
    but I’m not heading to Rome, but to death.

    I accept the death of aged Moses, blessed be he
    and my pending death in all-devouring time.
    Amidst coming uncertainties, pain, and myriad testings
    I desire to die with hearty thanksgiving on my lips

    or under my breath if I’ve lost all speech.
    Like Moses I will to live accepting my fate
    free of hate’s soul-perverting poisonings 
    free of cruelty, ill-will, pettiness, complaints.

    Time ends in time for every mortal life
    every creature of a day that’s born to perish. 
    Still a day arrives when consciousness admits
    “The breath of death blows cooly on my neck.”

    Then death.  And the sun will rise, shine, slip from sight
    crops planted, weeded, watered, and harvested; 
    some will still hate and kill for twisted imaginings 
    others will bury themselves in disquieting despair.

    In truth I neither hope for heaven
    nor dread the pains of fiery hell
    nor long for the ceasing of consciousness; 
    I place my trust in the Agathon.
    
    What matters most is not private existence 
    but what the unknown God is known to be--
    that out of which each being arises
    and which alone is indestructible.  

    Hope lies not in a separate eternal existence 
    but in the One “who’s not the God of the dead
    but of the living—to him all are alive.”
    And that suffices for me—not I but God alone.

    A single leaf falls from a deciduous tree
    fluttering quickly and quietly to the ground.
    It had its budding, growth, and withering
    and in time all that it was will decay
    nourishing the engendering earth.  


38.    Shadows on a wall  

    In the darkened bedroom
    the second floor of my home
    attention is drawn at once
    to shadows on a wall
    cast by a tall locust tree 
    rising from the ground 
    to well above the second floor
    its branches nearly touching the window
     some reaching the roof above.

    A bright light in the backyard 
    casts shadows of this locust
    on the wall facing the bed.
    As Montana winds move trees to sway
    so small branches outside the window
    dance restlessly dance.
    Or is it my mind that’s dancing
    as I watch the shadows
    and slip away into sleep?
    

39.    For the gods to come 

    Do you understand why Plotinus told a disciple
    who invited him to attend religious ceremonies:
    “It is up to the gods to come to me
    and not for me to go to the gods.”

    These are not the words of a haughty man
    as one might hastily assume from experience 
    but the words of a humble lover of wisdom 
    attuned to divine presence in and around him.

    How refreshing it is to turn back to Plotinus
    setting aside for a while both non-noetic poetry
    and the externalities of religious practice.
    The goal is to enter into the living God

    and not to be weighed down by lower concerns
    such as the politics and functioning of churches
    with their dogmas, rituals, vestments
    with vocal prayers, preaching, and sacraments.

    For those who desire or need religious externals
    they are available and may prove helpful;
    but devotees need to take heed truly
    to “seek first God’s reign and his righteousness”

    and not become addicted to substitutes--
    to outward forms rather than to inner emptiness  
    to going through the motions of “religion”
    without attending to presence in nature, in neighbor

    in the intangible uncontrollable realm between
    where suddenly without provocation it breaks in
    yet not in but simply is there as if encompassing 
    and one is but is not a separate self at all
    left speechless yet addressed by the wordless word.

                      ***

    In my seventy-first year, having already laid aside
    the duties of pastoring and performing rituals
    and at present feeling little or no desire for externals
    I desire rather to attune to non-external presence.

    And so I return to philosophy, especially to the Greeks
    who have long had a strong pull on my mind and soul.
    Presently to read Plotinus to whom I’ve again turned
    is to be pulled back into the search, the zétésis

    not for money or for fame, not for pleasure nor for gain
    but for finding one’s way through the nonsensical sensible world
    back into the simple reality of noûs, of intellect-spirit
    in which every breath is rich in divine possibilities.  


40.    Collected works of art

    To judge the greatest sculptor or painter
    or whose oeuvre made the greatest contribution
    I’m neither competent, nor pretend to be.
    In certain areas of the arts, I would take a stab
    using a device popular on the radio years ago:
    “What would you take on your desert island experience?”
    
    If you could enjoy only one artist in his genre
    and could take a set of works, not a single piece
    which collections by which artists would you choose?
    In the world of drama, I would gladly choose 
    the complete plays of William Shakespeare
    and hope that his poetry tagged along for the ride.

    If I could take one work or collection of poetry
    and be restricted to that body of work until death
     it would either be the works of Homer 
    (the Iliad and the Odyssey), or Dante’s Comedia 
    but most likely Homer, whose myths fascinate me;
    I derive no pleasure from stories of torture.

    So I would have Shakespeare and Homer along with me.
    And now for music:  one composer, one set of works.
    That the composer would be Johann Sebastian Bach
    I have no doubt; if I could, I would take his complete works
    as all extant compositions have been recorded.
    If I could take only one set or genre, I would surely choose 

    what Germans call das Kantatenwerk, the Cantatas.
    Their composition spans most of Bach’s active life
    and their spiritual, intellectual, emotional range
    (sometimes despite weaker libretti) sets them apart
    high above any other set of compositions I know.
    With Homer, Shakespeare, and Bach, I would fare well.

    Now if the master overseeing this exercise were to say
    “You may also select one body of sacred-spiritual writings”
    I would not choose the Mahabharata, despite its length
    and profundity, nor would I select the Pali Canon of the Buddha.
    I would choose the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures, the Bible
    for its scope, profundity, and role in my own formation.

    Finally, if this overseeing master permitted one writer
    in any genre other than poetry or drama
    and that writer could have written in any field of study
    without hesitating I should be happy to choose
    the collected works of Plato, the greatest philosopher 
    who would never cease to challenge me to grow.

    Of course I would love to carry with me Aristotle and Thomas
    but if limited to one thinker, it would have to be Plato.
    And so off I go to a desert island, or to be isolated
    without a library or internet:  but what great minds
    and dear friends would attend me:  Homer, Plato
    the Bible, Shakespeare, and Bach.  And you--
    what greatest works or collections would you choose?


41.    When the dogs bed down

    When Moses and Elijah have finally settled down
    (after a cigarette, perhaps, and a sip of champagne)
    with my coveralls spinning in the washer
    and the perpetual sounds of buzzing in my ears
    still I sit quietly to read and to write.

    When the dogs bed down, other beings awake
    (or is it just my imagination reveling in silence?)
    as I sense the spirits or spirit moving
    and calmly enter into their silent stirrings
    waiting for thoughts to arise to begin a quest

    from where I am to where I am not, or perhaps
    from where I am not to where I truly am.
    Before the nocturnal journey begins
    I never know what or who will arise
    or where we are going this evening.

    Words break lose and some swim to the surface 
    drawing my attention to them to consider
    perhaps to write them down or dismiss them
    dropping them freely with outstretched hands
    yet grateful that they have paid a house call.  

    When at last agèd Moses and lively Elijah
    have either fallen asleep or just keep still
    I breathe more freely and sense somewhere
    in memory or thought that now I am alone
    alone with the Alone, mind with penetrating Mind.

    Nothing need be said, felt, or sensed.
    It is enough to be together, You and I
    whether near or far or two or one 
    or both two yet one in ways unknown
    does not matter, is not my present concern.

    Alas that the quietness of a quiet evening
    after the old and the restless have disappeared
    elicits from my slower breathing a yawn
    and a desire to wend my way to bed.
    Then how long before I’m awakened by crying

    when Moses feels needy and lonely in the night?
    I must take some rest when I have the chance.
    For the dogs have bedded down, and so shall I.


42.    Making friends with darkness

    Montana’s winters are cold, dark, windy, and long.
    Cold and wind must be endured if one is outside
    doing chores on ranch, farm, or around the home
    or to take walks or hikes, or just to run errands.

    If one cannot stand the cold and dark of Montana
    he or she has several choices:  stay indoors 
    month after month, from late October to June
    go south for the winter, or just move away;

    or the simplest alternative:  accept what is
    dress warmly, do your chores, take walks
    whether it’s 5 out or a Chinook-mild forty-five; 
    if below zero, do chores quickly and read by the fire.

    Holing up indoors has never appealed to me.
    It’s a kind of escapism, a denial of reality; but then
    spending much time outdoors in sub-zero wind chills
    can be foolhardy and life-threatening.

    Wear layers of warm clothes, take yourself outside
    and enjoy the bracing cold, which in daylight
    often means blazing bright and usually cloudless skies
    except in the valleys of western Montana.

    Those mountainous areas, as around Missoula
    or the Bitterroot, or the Flathead, have milder temperatures
    but more hours of overcast skies, getting “socked in.”
    One way or another, Nature makes her demands

    and one can adjust prudently to what she offers
    or resist, complain, and make oneself miserable.
    Montana’s winters are cold, dark, windy, and long.
    One can rise early in the deep darkness of night

    and enjoy the quiet, peaceful, embracing darkness
    using one’s time to read, to write, or simply to think.
    It took me some years to welcome the darkness
    for the enveloping mantle of peace it proffers. 

    In darkness, without television, radio, stereo
    sitting still in low light with a book in one’s hands
    perhaps a pad of paper to jot down thoughts--
    here one finds and feels reasons to live

    and how to tend one’s soul in quiet happiness
    far from annoying crowds and bothersome noise
    that dominate so much of contemporary life.
    In darkness one may find an inner light

    Or turn away by way of distractions
    mere passing attractions that capture one’s fancy
    for a moment or two before stark dark reality 
    breaks in:  “Perish with what is perishing
    or eternalize being mindful of what endures death.”


43.    The erotic draw into death

    Rather than cut the tension, treasure it.
    Behold the shadows on the wall
    and recall seeing ocean waves
    rolling in and out and in again:
    how strangely sexy the dancing shadows
    how movingly sexual the ocean waves
    how disturbingly erotic the draw into death.

    In a moment of climax, one dies.
    The outpouring of bodily self in ecstasy
    foreshadows the outpouring of life into death.

    
44.    The fading of night 

    Night is ending as I gaze upwards
    towards the stars not yet faded;
    watching for some twenty minutes
    seated in my backyard beneath the pines;
    gradually and slowly, a kind of cosmic glow
    a pale faint light encompassing all that’s visible
    begins to grow imperceptibly
    yet noticeably through memory’s reckoning.

    A jet flies high overhead soundlessly
    far above the earth, then later a satellite
    traveling in the opposite direction
    not in a straight line, it seems
    but somehow slightly deviating:
    “Master,,” asks the novice, “is the flag waving?
    or is the wind waving?”
    “Your mind is waving,” comes the reply.

    Comfortable outside in temperate air
    mild enough to enjoy sitting still in darkness
    night slowly, slowly fading and then
    as if out of nowhere a breath upon the face 
    a coolness with some familiar, disquieting depth
    the kind of slight drop in temperature
    one often feels in woods shortly before dawn
    an invigorating exhalation of nature.

    Night ends as life ends and begins
    in a slow unsteady unsure crawl 
    step by uncertain step in pacing time
    slipping away without recognition 
    alone in its essential solitude
    unnoticed by the busy and the restless
    as dawn rides in on gentle breezes
    in the fading fading of the night.


    —End of “Following the Sun,” “Descending.  Part I:  Autumn Sonata.”
        28 October 2021