Ah, the cosmos becomes a metaphor for consciousness itself. I especially felt the last lines; that quiet image of the self as a sun in a dark place stayed with me. This poem reminds me of one of my most favorite songs, Home by Passenger. Beautiful, beautiful writing, Dave :)
Lovely expansive writing on the mystery of the indescribable cosmos David. You brought us on this journey through space and landed us beautifully with something personal, an address, perhaps, to the soul at the end. Really lovely.
I think I read a version of the Sermon on the Mount once out of general interest but, whenever I think of it, I think of the deeply funny portrayal in "The Life of Brian" - seen from the fringes of the crowd where no-one can actually catch exactly what's being said. eg. "Blessed are the Cheesemakers."
I don't know about a similarity between the stricture of the universe and neurone in the mind, but the quantum wave theory of consciousness does intrigue me, because it would imply that our mind is effectively an antennae, attuned to the universe. I do like that idea, very much.
And yeah - I also "tend to feel peaceful when I consider myself as a small changing element of a great big thing." That's part of what I get from time in natural environments. You can see and sense the vast cycles going on around us, where everything is created, then uncreated, then reformed in new ways, over and over and over....
Well, that's not to be taken literally of course, he is referring to all type is dairy products. And Brian is not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy.
Hauling in everything, like a harvest, like the reaper with his scythe. Black holes are like giant drains, sinkholes, places where the floor of your house get so weak you fall through. And all your plates and sinks and sofas and curtain rods get sucked in, yea even your entire house and all those dwelling there with you.
I wonder about gravity, that it is weak (so weak!!). Makes me think of the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus speaks of the meek and the poor in spirit, that they will be exalted in heaven. Makes me think of an old crone, long dismissed by the tribe, who is actually in charge, pulling all the strings. Makes me think of a baby, (Jed's little grandchild!), weak as a kitten but ruling the roost with a little hand curling around your finger. I wonder if force is the only measurement of.....force.
to a point where space
folds in upon itself
rolled up and stripped back.
I love this so much, it's a metaphor that often shows up in my work--like an onion, or nesting dolls. When I first became serious about writing poetry, I was obsessed with the "undersides" of things, and I have continued to enter the idea of those spaces for always. And the notion of stripping things down--like bark from a tree.
oooh! I love the undersides of things too! See my "UFO" note a few days ago.
It's why I love train lines in cities. You see the back of everything - the back of a factory, the back of a row of shops, all the back yards of all the houses built along the line....
Everything faces roads. Nothing faces a train line....
The kicker for me is....and this is hard to put into words, is that WE are the playing field--everything going on in and around us is going on at the subatomic level, we are a collection of constituent parts whirling and merry-jigging along.
Yup! That reminds me of a song by Ben Lee - a very lovely Australian guy. Back in around 2005 or 06 he released a track called "We're All In This Together." (Not to be confused with the horrible Disney song from High School Musical).
It was a big hit here and it got recycled in various forms, including advertising, so it was part of the soundtrack of life in Australia back then, and it still gets played often.
The words go: "I'm made of atoms, you're made of atoms and we're all in this together..." Just like you say - Rebecca!
Anyway, one day, easily 10 years years after the song came out, driving along in the car with Meg it came on the radio. When it was finished I said - Yeah - such a happy, gentle piece of music, but I've always wondered - who the hell is Adam?
Huh? says M.
You know - in the song - "I'm a mate of Adams, you're a mate of Adams, and we're all in this together." So yeah - who is Adam??
When M explained the correct lyric, I laughed so hard I almost drove off the road.
Take a trip back to Sydney, circa 2006, and hear it for yourself:
How WONDERFUL! It is catchy and happy. I like the video.
Way way back in the 80s, when Billy Joel sang “Sing us a song you’re the piano man,” I heard instead, “Sing us a song yellow piano man,” and I saw a totally yellow bar with a totally yellow piano being played by a man in a totally yellow suit with a canary in a cage hanging just above him.
Hi Dave, this is too much for my tired lambing brain, but I know I like it, it’s a wonderful poem. I need to come back to it a few weeks from now to properly appreciate it. D
Yes yes yes... You have taken the food path David ... It is not to be solved. It is to be lived and felt and experienced. I suppose appreciated as well. Gratitude doesn't hurt, despite the fact that life sometimes does
Ah, the cosmos becomes a metaphor for consciousness itself. I especially felt the last lines; that quiet image of the self as a sun in a dark place stayed with me. This poem reminds me of one of my most favorite songs, Home by Passenger. Beautiful, beautiful writing, Dave :)
Thankyou my far away friend.
It seems that Metaphysical Poetry is unfashionable these days.
What can we do, but write what we feel?
D
You are welcome, my far away and wise, friend.
And if there wasn’t Self, there wouldn’t be a fifth dimension and none of the other four would be worth knowing about…
Yes, and yes.... and what other kinds of "selves" are out there, somewhere - watching, marvelling...
Lovely expansive writing on the mystery of the indescribable cosmos David. You brought us on this journey through space and landed us beautifully with something personal, an address, perhaps, to the soul at the end. Really lovely.
Thankyou, Síodhna. The workings of the cosmos are the greatest beauty. Every object with any mass has its own gravity - even us...
We are all - literally - attracted to one another, minutely.....
Best Wishes - Dave :)
We are pulled into each other's auras and energy, lovely thought, thanks Dave.
pulled
to the only path it can be
in a galaxy lulled by the
familiarity of the miraculous.
... loving this, Dave. Wow and more wow. Fabulous, beautiful, gravitational. If only we were taught poetry in the Physics class! I might have GOT it!
Thanks friend Richard.
It's all so much more than just Turtles all the way down...
The universe is catastrophically beautiful.
Sigh
D
Beautifully cosmic poetry, David 🌌
Thankyou, Caroline!
Best Wishes - Dave :)
We'll take the gold... And the frankincense... But you can keep the bomb!!
Is blessed are the poor in spirit simply another way of saying what goes around comes around?
Everything leftover gets gathered up and put in the mixing bowl as a starter for the next batch of brownies?
I have heard (unverified sources) that the universe maps very similarly to the configuration of neurons in a mind.
Does the universe make the mind, or is the universe simply a rendering of what mind looks like on a grand scale?
Counterintuitively, I tend to feel peaceful when I consider myself as a small changing element of a great big thing.
I tend to get the yips when I think of myself as a fixed big thing unto myself.
I think I read a version of the Sermon on the Mount once out of general interest but, whenever I think of it, I think of the deeply funny portrayal in "The Life of Brian" - seen from the fringes of the crowd where no-one can actually catch exactly what's being said. eg. "Blessed are the Cheesemakers."
I don't know about a similarity between the stricture of the universe and neurone in the mind, but the quantum wave theory of consciousness does intrigue me, because it would imply that our mind is effectively an antennae, attuned to the universe. I do like that idea, very much.
And yeah - I also "tend to feel peaceful when I consider myself as a small changing element of a great big thing." That's part of what I get from time in natural environments. You can see and sense the vast cycles going on around us, where everything is created, then uncreated, then reformed in new ways, over and over and over....
D
Well, that's not to be taken literally of course, he is referring to all type is dairy products. And Brian is not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy.
That last stanza!!
Thankyou Alex :)
and the self sits
itself like a sun
in a dark place,
wondering. - this made me think - the vastness, the black hole that swallows all thought and the consciousness that ponders! Wow!
Like a black hole hidden,
hull down in wait,
hauling in everything -
rocks dust gas and light -
Hauling in everything, like a harvest, like the reaper with his scythe. Black holes are like giant drains, sinkholes, places where the floor of your house get so weak you fall through. And all your plates and sinks and sofas and curtain rods get sucked in, yea even your entire house and all those dwelling there with you.
I wonder about gravity, that it is weak (so weak!!). Makes me think of the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus speaks of the meek and the poor in spirit, that they will be exalted in heaven. Makes me think of an old crone, long dismissed by the tribe, who is actually in charge, pulling all the strings. Makes me think of a baby, (Jed's little grandchild!), weak as a kitten but ruling the roost with a little hand curling around your finger. I wonder if force is the only measurement of.....force.
to a point where space
folds in upon itself
rolled up and stripped back.
I love this so much, it's a metaphor that often shows up in my work--like an onion, or nesting dolls. When I first became serious about writing poetry, I was obsessed with the "undersides" of things, and I have continued to enter the idea of those spaces for always. And the notion of stripping things down--like bark from a tree.
oooh! I love the undersides of things too! See my "UFO" note a few days ago.
It's why I love train lines in cities. You see the back of everything - the back of a factory, the back of a row of shops, all the back yards of all the houses built along the line....
Everything faces roads. Nothing faces a train line....
D :)
The last stanza might be worthy of my first tattoo.
As you might guess, David, this is one of my favorites.
You killed it.
This strange thing that made us and keeps us alive.
Thankyou, Jed my friend.
Maybe just screen print it on a T shirt... Far less painful. Far less permanent.
Huge best wishes to you...
Dave :)
The kicker for me is....and this is hard to put into words, is that WE are the playing field--everything going on in and around us is going on at the subatomic level, we are a collection of constituent parts whirling and merry-jigging along.
Yup! That reminds me of a song by Ben Lee - a very lovely Australian guy. Back in around 2005 or 06 he released a track called "We're All In This Together." (Not to be confused with the horrible Disney song from High School Musical).
It was a big hit here and it got recycled in various forms, including advertising, so it was part of the soundtrack of life in Australia back then, and it still gets played often.
The words go: "I'm made of atoms, you're made of atoms and we're all in this together..." Just like you say - Rebecca!
Anyway, one day, easily 10 years years after the song came out, driving along in the car with Meg it came on the radio. When it was finished I said - Yeah - such a happy, gentle piece of music, but I've always wondered - who the hell is Adam?
Huh? says M.
You know - in the song - "I'm a mate of Adams, you're a mate of Adams, and we're all in this together." So yeah - who is Adam??
When M explained the correct lyric, I laughed so hard I almost drove off the road.
Take a trip back to Sydney, circa 2006, and hear it for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkw7gl0cWYo
How WONDERFUL! It is catchy and happy. I like the video.
Way way back in the 80s, when Billy Joel sang “Sing us a song you’re the piano man,” I heard instead, “Sing us a song yellow piano man,” and I saw a totally yellow bar with a totally yellow piano being played by a man in a totally yellow suit with a canary in a cage hanging just above him.
Now that would be a sight!!!! :)
I could comment on this comment until my thumbs fall off, but I think I am content with spending my days merry-jigging.
"The singularity from which no thing escapes
not even thought"
It's both reassuring and unsettling in its startling absouteness...and I say yes!
Thanks for this gorgeous wording.
Hey Leslie
Thankyou! So glad you like it...
Huge best wishes from this side of the planet....
Dave :)
Hi Dave, this is too much for my tired lambing brain, but I know I like it, it’s a wonderful poem. I need to come back to it a few weeks from now to properly appreciate it. D
No hurry Dave. The universe can wait :)
Yes yes yes... You have taken the food path David ... It is not to be solved. It is to be lived and felt and experienced. I suppose appreciated as well. Gratitude doesn't hurt, despite the fact that life sometimes does
beautiful poem - vast and centering.
Thankyou, Lori!
Best Wishes from Australia - Dave :)
Hello 👋 from Canada 🇨🇦
magical!!
Hey, Sonja!
Thankyou!
Best Wishes from Oz - Dave :)