Archive
07/14/08 - (2)
Word Without End
Since my intellect's apprenticeship (That time, in my twenties, when my ravenous mind Came under the tutelage of Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, The Greeks, Beowulf, the Norse epics, Piers Plowman, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Tirso, Milton, Calderón),
I've done my perfervid best to compose poetry, In the desperate hope of resurrecting, from nothingness, A semblance of man's potential To emulate the fragile ecstasy of original Creation, Captured in His most majestic expressions of immortality.
But now, at sixty-seven, Having reached my existence's point of no return, I realize that nothing I've ever written (Not any of my nearly ten thousand verses, Which includes this very one, in progress)
Can possibly approximate the grandeur of God's genius, When, in moments, eons, of transient rapture, With His protean wisdom, He persuaded the stars That even they could play a major part in man's mortality, Convinced the sun and moon to illuminate his future,
By speaking the light-years alive, Guiding man home, with innate compassion, To the origin of celestial light. Nevertheless, I'm struck by this singular insight: I, of my own volition, having chosen to create poetry,
Am, in and of myself, sufficient proof, testimony, To the enduring power of faith in the word writ large, Across the sky, in broad daylight and at night, That yet tells the entire tale of civilization, Syllable by syllable, word without end, amen.
07/14/08 - (2)
|
|||
|
|||
