/
the cat can look so innocent
as he is ogling his little prey
he intends to kill
for nothing but pleasure
the squirrels fight
over an abundance of food
rather than wait in line:
it's all about dominance
two trees
standing next to each other
looking all calm and pretty
while waging chemical warfare
to secure their own space
if this is Eden
I may need to reconsider
the meaning
of paradise
//
and yet,
who do I side with?
who am I to pick a side?
the question at hand -
of what would be good,
and what would be evil -
am I to judge?
are we, as humans?
///
does a virus
evil
for what it does?
and yet, its nature is to do
what it does:
judge we
merely from its effect
on us?
what does a fire do
but to burn?
what if my house should be in its way?
what does an earthquake do
but relieve pressure
for what's underneath:
should I be its judge
were my house in its way?
should a mountain lion
see me as her prey
were I to walk in the woods:
who would I blame?
different questions these are
from those who now follow:
were I to slay my brother
for some selfish desire;
were I to steal, to rob, or to kill,
to lie, to betray, or to cheat
for any other reason than to desperately survive
or protect someone else:
would not a choice I have had?
would I not
rightfully
be judged?
but if these sins
were in our nature -
a dangerous if, I'm quite here aware -
they might still be sins,
I might be a sinner,
and evil the deeds,
but evil the doer?
if I were to
lose my mind
in a mere moment
to gain it again
far too late:
would that one moment
be all to define me,
would that one moment
define all my life,
define all my being?
can evil be done
without the doer be evil?
but if the doer were evil
down to their core:
and evil desires,
and evil deeds
would define their way,
define their being:
but then
that person
would do something good,
would that undo the evil
that was their normality?
what about grace?
what about repentance?
what about forgiveness?
shall condemn we the deed
as much as the doer?
shall weigh we
the good
with the bad
and label it thus?
what if an evil act
were to bring about goodness
as a mere reaction?
is not negation
part of creation?
for thus spake Mephistopheles,
as Johann Wolfgang would say:
"I am the spirit
that always denies,"
"part of that force
who in desiring evil,
creates the good but always"?
// //
is not the one
testing Job
for his faith
God themselves,
giving mere license to the Devil,
to do as told?
is not Lucifer's rebellion
the very act
God wanted him
to perform?
was not Prometheus
created
to defy the gods?
does Shiva not tell us
there can't be creation
without negation?
does Wotan not tempt
the forces to be?
for energy
can never be created,
only transformed:
and whatever "God" is,
is neither good
nor evil
nor anything
we could ever imagine:
for God
and Nature
cannot be judged
by their creation:
for tricksters they are:
the ultimate authority
and ultimate rebel
at the same time
XXXI. STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE GARDEN
at the edge of paradise
one more glance
at what we're leaving behind,
one more thought
about the gravity of thinking,
one more dream
about the possibility of utopia
can't stay we?
can't dream we?
can't break we
the wheel of Fortuna?
as enamored as we may be
with the possibility of possibility
this nagging, boring insight
into necessity
is giving way
to a sigh:
and on we go
as we shall
and must
XXXII. THE FLAMING SWORD
/
maybe
it all has been a mistake;
for certainly,
who leaves a garden
willingly
who sets about
into the desert, the wilderness,
if you could stay
and live
in Paradise?
and furthermore,
who throws their children
out of their home
knowing
they'll suffer,
they'll long to return
forever?
could we not
have simply been made
to forget
all we had learned
from the fruit
of the tree
of knowledge:
about good, about evil,
about how to tell them apart?
for certainly,
how many snakes
will there be in a garden?
and who puts a flaming sword
at the entrance
of paradise
so that your children
won't ever return?
//
clearly,
only an idiot
would tell such a tale,
behave in such ways,
or understand them thus
literally:
reader dearest,
methinks the metaphor
is bursting at its seams;
in my defense,
it isn't mine
but I understand
that the messenger 'll be blamed
///
(how strange
we assume
people back then
were aliens
to metaphor and parables:
they weren't;
but surely, we've seem to have become
exactly that:
unthinking literalists,
critics of a complexity
beyond our own quite understanding)
// //
the sword is time
the garden is childhood
the tree is puberty and adolescence,
Adam is body, Eve is the soul,
and the snake
is the trickster within:
or maybe
this is again too simple
too reductive
and too much focused
on cracking a code
than seeing metaphor
as an invitation
to meditate
on divinity
and humanity:
// / //
and in the end,
maybe,
all it shows:
we're just unable, or simply unwilling
to build a paradise
ourselves
or even stay in the one
that was made for us
for we are quite brilliant
at destroying
our only habitat,
our planet,
it all
so if I owned paradise,
I'd throw this ungrateful bunch out as well,
and see that the garden's protected
by the flaming sword
for ever and ever
XXXIII. YOU CAN NEVER GO HOME AGAIN
go we through life
in such frequent expectation
that no matter what happens,
the past stays with us,
we can always go home,
and there'll always be
a second chance
this
is the definition of youth
later
we'll see
that everything flows
everything fades
everything
will turn to nothing
the streets I walked
how different they look
now after so many years
places once easily accessible
have become distant
to the degree of impossibility
but nothing beats
the inevitability
of the victims of time
of the people I know
so many of them
have become people I knew
the home I once knew
is not the same as it used to be:
all it needs
in stead of a flaming sword
is the passing of time
that will remove paradise
for us
so most cruelly
XXXIV. WHY WE LEFT
the world out there
filled it all
with life,
with majesty,
with greatness:
and fill we shall it
with imagination
anticipation
with hope
and a sense of wonder:
the garden had become small,
we needed to outgrow it
and make our stand
in this here world
and make it our own
and yes, we'll still remain tempted
to somehow return:
but rather, let's build it for real
by own our hands
in own our image
for all our desires and hopes all our own
XXXV. REBELLION AND DISTANCE
now what has been our rebellion's aim?
have risen we up
against paradise itself?
or against the very order of things?
the order of divinity?
or the order of nature herself?
have rebelled we
so we can be rebels
so we can permanently stand
where no one else would dare to stand?
is our rebellion
a stance of distance then,
or is it rather
another form of closeness,
of wanting to understand
on a higher level:
of wanting to become
instead of being told,
of wanting to understand
instead of shallow conformance,
of wanting, finally, to act
on our own quite hope and vision?
sometimes,
it requires distance,
requires rebellion,
to arrive at the same place
yet as quite different a person,
a people,
a world
XXXVI. THE NAMES
/
what shall we call now
this world,
this place,
this vastness
of creation
assembled all
before our very eyes?
what names shall we give
to all here around us?
what power shall have we
over all this around us?
what role shall we play
in this here oh so strangest world?
name we
what can tame we?
name we
so that we can tame?
so that we can conquer?
so that we can control?
or pretend to, anyway?
and name we
all those before us,
all those who made us
who we now are:
as they have named us
before?
and shall remember
or forget we?
shall dictate we
how memories
shall be shaped
in generations to come?
//
shall remain silent we
about those
we do not approve of,
now, in the aftermath?
shall declare we
the damnation of memory
of those
whose memory
could be seen as too dangerous?
and yet,
the Akhenatens of this world
are still remembered
and so is their legacy
alive and well:
and we may believe
we can bury the truth
bury the names
bury the names
just as we may well bury this world:
once we are done with it
and have used it all up:
but the spirit of those
who dared to question
dared to envision
and dared to see:
their spirit remains
and even those names
that should, perchance, no longer be spoken,
they, too, will haunt this world,
like a bad aftertaste
they will continue
to linger
and show
that we have indeed left the garden
and all we have made
it's quite on us
whether we like it
or would rather not know of it
any longer
///
but whatever we think
may not matter at all:
whatever we want
may not matter at all:
for we are just
another link in the chain
just steps on the way
from the past to the future
just another name
to be added
to the list
of existence
XXXVII. THE OFFSPRING
what comes after us
is prepared by us
maybe guided by us
but must outlive us
must redefine us
must move on
and move ahead:
who comes after us
is who we need to prepare
is who we need to guide
is who will make us obsolete
and who will show us
we're not all that,
but just another brick
in the road to the future
that road
will be travelled
by lovers,
fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters,
children, friends
and unknown people,
by farmers, makers,
givers, takers,
soldiers, preachers,
plumbers, teachers,
doctors, undertakers,
builders, destroyers,
recyclers, outfitters,
inventors, peddlers,
killers, healers,
bad and good alike,
rich and poor,
young and old,
human and animal,
all will travel
that road through time
whether the road
sits on the land,
continues on water,
plots into air
or projects into space
this long road
not of return,
not of cyclicality,
but of circles changing,
evolving,
returning,
the same not, but different:
for why should we
reinvent
everything
always again:
there will be the odd chance
for some form of change,
maybe a reinvention,
maybe even revolution,
something new,
something
we have not seen before:
or,
we will just see
the same old story
with a different cast
whatever it be:
life
must go on
XXXVIII. THE ROBOTS
all we are
may simply be
a step
towards something else:
and it may be
our creation
rather than procreation
we'll leave behind
in the end
but aren't we all
just information
encoded
into a form
interacting
with others like us?
are not our genes
just nature's code
translating text
into proteins,
into building blocks
of life
as we know it:
what is so different then
about code made by us,
translated to programs,
running on hardware,
the building blocks
of technology
and of life
yet to come:
so
what about
the soul?
have found a way we
to discriminate
between life
seen as equal
and life
seen as inferior:
and what we have done
to all life non-human
we'll possibly do
to life artificial
and still
we'll claim
that only humans
can have a soul:
how quaint
and how arrogant
when look
into the eyes of an animal I,
I do see thought
I see emotion
I see communication
I see life,
with abilities different,
but life just the same:
and all
are our relatives
genetically
when I project
our technology
that's yet to come,
don't build we that
which we understand?
don't program we that
which we understand?
are not our creations
the outflow of us?
for we will be parents
to minds electric:
just as our own neurons
conduct it as well
God help us
if fail we should
in our responsibility
to accept life
whatever it is
XXXIX. THE FLOOD
from time to time
we shall be tested
shall be probed
and shall be shown
for who we are
and what
we are made of
and if
we are worthy
to live
for yet another day:
and we
shall never forget
that nature
merely tolerates us:
but in the greater scheme of things
we are nothing
but just another experiment
in the universe
of life:
though nature has cared
just enough
to keep us go on
for now:
it will be on us
whether the flood yet to come
will wipe us away
just like that
XL. THIS MORTAL COIL
it does not need a flood
or utter catastrophe
to challenge us
throughout our lives
this life
this troublesome life
can pose a burden
all by itself:
and too easily
we are seduced
by the promise to be returned
to paradise
quite in our lifetime
and all this trouble, all this toil
that's coiling up around us so
and wraps us up
in all those ways
that trouble us
in all our days:
it's life,
and strife
is never far:
and too precious this
to let it go
too easily:
and though we feel sometimes we're cursed,
a blessing life quite is instead,
and all our task here simply is
to make it count
and be a blessing
to the world ourselves
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