Don't Ask!
"Light is light," he declared with a certainty the cicadas waiting
In cold earth must feel when a signal comes that it’s time
To be alive again and forget the lonely years of waiting...
As anybody knows who has made more than three photographs
at exactly the same time of day but in three different places... light
is not just light but a wild painter of grace or angst for every place.
The village where I lived as a child makes light like no other place.
It’s the way trees shine there in the morning that I remember mostly...
and also in the rain or just behind a shower and after making love.
A majestic oak north of town, revered by generations of town folk,
managed moment by moment even in the rarest winter storms
a magic change from green blue of noontime to gold at ends of days.
Dying of light doesn’t have to be a time of sorrow and sadness.
If you’ve ever seen the lighthouse at land’s end glowing at sunset,
you recognize in the golden orange glow a promise of tomorrow.
1 comment:
Actually, the stories about what Jesus did and felt that are the basis for your argument were written generations after Jesus died by individuals who never met him, but who were using his name to legitimate a religious institution that was in more than a few ways the antithesis of what Jesus stood for. Independent of the later tradition which developed from the Pauline version of Christianity, Jesus was known as a seer, a sage, and a healer. The closest we can come to the actual Jesus are the written texts deriving from an oral tradition of collections of his sayings that were in no way systematic, and which were not associated with stories about his behavior or feelings. Instead, they challenged people to think, to view the world differently from the version of reality laid upon them by those of higher status and power who dominated them. Oral traditions, however, tend to mutate and change almost organically as different bearers of the tradition prune, modify, and amplify various sayings. I am not betting that Jesus wasn't empathic. But the data to suggest that he was just hasn't been discovered. That said, there is still much of great importance to be learned from the earlier sayings tradition and the type of social consciousness it sought to engender. It's a pity that it is so ignored today.
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