The Human Condition, Saved By Ravens

There is a trick to it, to most of it. The simple people (I don't mean stupid) are the best at seeing the trick. Most of us are just more complicated than is really good for us. Well. If you can see really complex threads and structures then you get to build huge metaphors and that makes for better art. But everyone knows how easy it is for artists to be miserable people. The truly happy artist is an unusual sort. I know in my case that when I am extraordinarily happy my own art stops in favor of the savor :) I can get up and do it again artistically out of a sickbed. Hmmm. There is a trick to seeing the simple stuff that just is too close in. I am too used to expect complexity and sure everything has to be complex. So much actually is complex. I really "hate" the guys who insist on over-simplifying stuff. Actually they scare me. I think they can do stuff like invade Iraq. Simplistic is not simplicity. And yet, simplicity...'tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free, 'tis a gift to get down where we ought to be...

The Human Condition

I live isolate
As I am sure you do too,
This much is common

To us, to the rest of us
As well. This is just the truth.

But I'm not unique
Since we are alike in this
And this is true too.

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I don't know what my intro has to do with the poem exactly except that I try to illustrate seeing closer in as I tried to describe it.

This next poem is so symbolic I am not sure I understand what I mean. The story is I am on thin ice and get out of that situation through an intervention. What situation? Oh. I carry illusions but will die without them. Hmmm. So I get dumped in safer conditions and get to keep my illusions.

Once I really was stripped of my illusions. That was in 1966. I am still recovering. Be careful what you ask for. I didn't even ask, and it wasn't unpleasant. In fact it was a terrific joyous experience. I am one who knows that when the illusions are gone things get pretty good. But you can't live here there or there here. Not without tremendous training and support. Well there, now. I bet this is as cryptic as the ravens.

I was snowbound, the day before Christmas. This poem was written that morning. We don't have many ravens in Gladstone, but there are many crows. We never have cold enough weather long enough to ever see a frozen river.

Saved By Ravens

I take one more step.
The cracks radiate from me,
The wierdest high whine
Tells me I'm all done with this.

This ice will not hold my world.
I am too burdened
With illusion, too heavy,
But I'll freeze naked.

I look up. Ravens
Have gathered. I have become
A spectator sport.

They descend, gently grab me,
So many hold me, lift me
And dump me in snow
At the edge of this thin ice.
Then they fly away.