language for no language
One of the things a poet works at for the rest of us is developing a language for things for which we have no language. For instance, death.
:- Doug.
Archive for the 'Conversations' Category
In the dying room
Being in the dying room the task is witnessing. You witness my dying, ask me about what is going on, what I’m thinking with a far away look. I witness to you my thoughts, prayers, wishes, needs, and not having needs, so your time will be known a little. Thus we love one another. Parent, child, spouse.
:- Doug.
Life and the dying
Is this subject legal? Well, is it illegal? It is living. That’s what I want to lead us to learn: life and the dying of it.
:- Doug.
What an ancestor does
We do not know what an ancestor is, what an ancestor does. It is a bigger role than being parent. It is a bigger role than being known. It might be effected in story. Stories we tell, stories told of us. A bigger us than one family member. Founding. Foundational. This we study.
:- Doug.
Ancestor you
Turn
Turn your face
From where you were heading
From whom you were
To the ancestors from whom you come
To the ancestor you are becoming
Turn
:- Doug.
bones to sustain
If humans feel homeless in the New World, if it is in part because they have no bones of their ancestors to sustain, then what will happen when we travel to the stars, go into suspended animation for our light years of travel? We will be so far away from our root stock, will we question our existence? How fundamental will be our separation? Will we ever be able to close the circle?
:- Doug.
Imprisoned
Took in a TED talk yesterday of prisoners reading bedtime stories to their children via video recording. It has application to us, imprisoned in 2020s thinking, wanting to converse with our grandchildren’s grandchildren. Love can be communicated beyond our bars.
:- Doug.
Using your dominant hand
When you catch yourself using your dominant hand, think of the grandchildren, of what puts the twinkle in their eye.
:- Doug.
Fluttering quivering nuances
Yet I am catching a whiff of something that will add profundity to our course.
Perhaps we will weep for those who are forgotten between now and 300 years. Weep to remember them. Weep to bring them forth as carers and tenders of humanicity across these three centuries. Remember ourselves as able to care and tend our own part in humanicity.
Perhaps we will weave a story we can then slip into, comfortable slippers and a warm robe for this winter’s eve. Clothing which makes the person, makes us, makes the people. A story we live up to.
It is more than grief. Or rather beyond grief. Grief grows us. Hollows us out, makes us resonant. Each time the echo comes back. Back to catch us again. Back to give us something new to hear. Back to have us see something new. Back to take away words. Back to know the stitches.
It is pondering. Reflecting. Resonating. Grief slows us. Illness slows us. Loss slows us. This is one place hope is a disservice: it wants us to pick up, carry on, regain speed. Some growing parts of in life need steeping, composting, dark.
So when we reflect on those in the between times, we reflect on what they need, what those who come later want. We bring both dark and light, and the shadows, the shadows that tell us the depth of what we want it to mean to be human. The shadows that show us the breadth of our differences. The shadows that show the fluttering quivering nuances of where we want to be heading.
These to ponder.
:- Doug.
Human for their grandchildren
Your task, elder, is to be human for those wanting, needing to be more human for their grandchildren. Think on this a few seconds every hour.
:- Doug.
Dying with a gift?
What are the dying doing? My answer has been: Living. I thought it profound. It is. But is there a profounder? Can we die purposely, with a gift to those who die after?
:- Doug.
Dizzying in dying
Dizzying in dying
lost in my spinning head
what words to tell
and who will tell
the ending of my story?
:- Doug.
Seeking ignorance
Of what new things will people of 300 years from now be ignorant? What ignorance ought to be sought?
:- Doug.
Not so self-reliant?
How much of what we think of humanity, life, death, and responsibility, is the result of thinking of people as self-reliant individuals? What if our thinking on these and other substantial topics started first with families, groups, togethers?
:- Doug.
One of the many
A glimpse: Aboriginal peoples of whom I have read seem to see people as a species among many, sharing. We tend to see humans as the regal species, in control. If superintelligence arrives at being more in control than we, might that remind us we are one of the many?
:- Doug.
Wrestles us to ground
Major poetry wrestles us to ground
To the unwanted ground of our being
Twists and turns out our bowels
Wrenches and disjoints us
Wrests perchance a hint of our real
From living days
From our dying
:- Doug.
Wrestle with the wonder
Wrestle with the wonder
the surprise of this moment
what you knew about life is dying
:- Doug.
