Monday, February 23, 2009

Ancestry, First Plants

There is a part of me sure I am misplaced here on the planet. There's another part of me sure I am in a direct line of descent from the very first living thing that led to this line of descent. It is one of the advantages of accepting evolution, to understand that fundamental connection, unbroken because it has to be, with every form of dna based life on the planet absolutely and unequivocally related one to the other. It cannot be otherwise...well. Perhaps there are five ancestors, five lines of descent, but the incredible sameness of dna coding suggests only one.

Ancestry

Plants know more than me,
More than you too. They love green
More than anything.
First plants are tiny,
Still tiny after aeons,
After birthing giants.
First plants know the way.

Low murmurings from first plants
Tell my ancestry.

*************************************

I had a moment like many others that led to this poem. No matter what it is about, no matter I am in the right or not, when I get agressive and antagonistic, I am in the wrong, in the wrong in this way...it puts me at risk of my life in a self destructive way. I know this through a long history of self punishment episodes that result from resentment and anger. The price I pay is simply too steep. It is as if I am allergic to my own hormones and other secretions that happen under the stress of anger. I could call this, probably should call this a disadvantage. On the other hand I live a more peaceful life than many do. This does not make me a better man. It does however make me still alive when I am at risk, and still living fairly well when I might well be very much worse off by my own hand. It is not that I always turn on myself but that it leaks out in consistently weird luck - have a fight with the wife, and then a hit and run in a parking lot bangs my car. That sort of thing.

I Am No Master

I don't wish to fight.
In the middle, holy war,
Red flame in my gut.

You wrong me with your demands.
This twists me around myself.

I dream of a place
Where no one steps on my toes,
Where I disappear.

9 comments:

  1. I have always struggled with a discordant soul in terms of ‘belonging and identity’. A nomad of sorts for many reasons... this post resonates deeply – especially these lines:

    “I dream of a place
    Where no one steps on my toes,
    Where I disappear.”

    Lots to ponder on in this post!

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  2. Isn't it funny that in feeling all alone, like you are the only one, nowhere to go to belong, or at least so few places, isn't it funny then to find that a quite large crowd feels the same??

    What IS that?

    And why isn't there more comfort in knowing the other person feels like that too?

    :)

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  3. I wrote part of a poem called "Green" not that long ago. I love the color Green and I love plants:).

    Green

    What I learned that day
    is how green
    can be so many colors
    filling my eyes and how
    spring in rain
    can feel like autumn
    only with new growth.
    How can I explain?
    On the edge of summer
    the rain kept falling
    into this November heart of mine.
    I wanted to hang my dreams one by one
    like clean white sheets in the sun.
    Let them fill with the wind.
    I wanted to feel again
    for the first time in years
    what it is to laugh and be well.

    "Ancestry" is lovely. Sometimes I think of us all being stardust...coming and going...all connected to everything ...

    "I am no Master" reminds me of what I have learned through the rest of my family who all practice Aikido. The practice of letting this feeling roll away from you...maybe not disappearing..but embracing the opposition. Their Sensei is amazing and I learn more just sitting and listening than I thought would be possible. There is a lot to letting that poisoned agression go...and sometimes it is my ownself stepping on my toes:P.

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  4. Yes indeedy. There is a remark made in AA about this.

    If you treated me like I treat me, I would have to slap you. Well, actually I lightened it up.

    Learning how to forgive one's own capacity to screw up is just fucking essential. 'Scuse the french.

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  5. i do frequently feel like a potted plant..... how did you know my last picture was the seed for the beautiful dragon tongue...... Hemigraphis repanda

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  6. The conversation here is always rich. I think you hit on something, Christopher, when you say that there's a comfort in knowing others feel as alone as you. The old "misery loves company", or is it rather a tenuous connection that we so consistently seek? Even being alike in our solitude lets us know we're part of something greater than just ourselves.

    I love both your poems. The discussion of green makes me think of one of my favorite lines from poetry - Dylan Thomas's
    "Time held me green and dying,
    and I sang in my chains like the sea."

    We're all green and dying, aren't we?

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  7. Ghost, nice to see you so soon after the last time you were here. Thank you for the Dragon's Tongue. It spoke to me. Unfortunately, I am sworn to secrecy.

    Karen, I don't think the existential solitude is necessarily a miserable condition, though it is a stern one, and of course it is an acquired taste. We start more needy of companionship and troubled when it doesn't work out. So I think the latter is wiser, that there is a connection that remains. What I like to think is there is a spiritual dimension, quite apart from the reality or not of God. It is in the spirit that the existential man finds connection, one to another. This is not a fact so much as it is a movement, an ebb and flow, a rise and fall, and at the hesitation, at the apex, there is mystery.

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  8. It's not that bad...dragons always speak in tongues unless you get the trick of it, and then they'll talk plain to you if they are not too hungry. But I assume if you are getting close to dragons you also know enough to track the feeding frenzies.

    By the way, the St. George story is anti-dragon sentiment and is simply not true...It was quite the other way around. Georgy boy got cooked. The story is propaganda from would be papist sources, not even the real pope, just some guys after a coup, seeking an overthrow. I got this from the dragon herself...she did have to fly off, things were getting too tedious. She took half the magic from France with her. This really pissed off the French alchemists.

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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