xxxiii.24. original sin

[allenitz]

several
religiosos
at the table next to me

a different
set
than usually have their discussions

here
in the morning
and i’m overhearing -

life is a closed arc
one says,
or did he say

life is a closed heart,
either way,
there is a poem in both

but i can’t write it today
because today
i’m more concerned

about the false spring
that’s about to burst in on us,
little buds

poking their little green heads
out
from the trees

poor little babies
born too soon
& soon to die as winter

returns
later this week
poor little babies

born to die
in
in the seasonal mysteries

and lies of life
as are we all in our day
and time

and one of the preachers -
the tall
white haired one

who looks so much like a Lutheran preacher
that there is no way in his life
he could be anything else -

he says,
men and women
are not born evil, the fall

from the garden,
he suggests,
was not due to some original sin

but development
of a knowledge of self,
this naked, hairless

human creature
who had never known
either self or other

suddenly knowing both,
and from self-consciousness,
self-interest

and ego
and positioning of self
above all else,

the fall
not from some mythical garden
but from the universal soul,

becoming one alone
and distinct
and lonely in its divorce

from the greater all,
like the buds, aborning and dying,
all part of a greater truth,

while we,
the fallen, birth
and death on our own,

then,
having done our penance
of life as ourself

return from exile
to the garden
of all undivided

[sonoranpoet]

SO much is good in this...
starting with: religiosos LOVE THIS WORD! I will start using it immediately!

and this poem w/in a poem

the fall
not from some mythical garden
but from the universal soul,

becoming one alone
and distinct
and lonely in its divorce

from the greater all,
like the buds, aborning and dying,
all part of a greater truth,

I purport to know nothing but what I observe...don't know if its right or wrong only what makes sense at the time...can't understand the soap box (though you wouldn't know that from my rant poem from yesterday...the devil made me do it...actually the fake 'angels' did!)

Like the comparison of false spring with false premise it is a beautiful thing!

S.

['Ilima Stern]

"Like the comparison of false spring with false premise it is a beautiful thing!" quoting Sue here and I agree. I also like the close, the return at the end of life to Eden. Nice way to think about it, if you buy the idea of the fall at all.
Smiles,
'ilima

[Wiltshire]

Wow, something tells me you don't get sidetracked down this path very often! Like Sue and 'ilima, I found lots interesting to think about here. Love the description of the religiosos!

Smiles,
Wilt

[AJFolkart]

Never in my life heard a Lutheran minister say anything so wise. I've had Lutheran friends, gone to church with them, and fallen, but not out of the garden, instead to sleep. I'd love to meet this man. I'd go and listen to him any Sunday, but maybe he does not espouse these ideas from his pulpit 'cause if he did he might not have a pulpit much longer. People like the idea of original sin. They like feeling guilty, picked on by God. They like having a project - redemption - to give them a reason for being. See, this is a good poem, woke me up.

False spring - false hope, and the buds and birds don't even make a choice, they simply respond to the moment - and their deaths aren't punishment, they simply are.

And, the idea of isolating as self-awareness develops and ego starts taking over, and the idea of coming together into one great ONE is so Buddhist. So reasonable. But, when I first encountered that idea as a teenager it terrified me. I was having enough trouble defining myself and didn't want to waste all that work by being absorbed into anything as amorphous as a great 'ONE.'

Now, I wouldn't mind.

And here are the parts I especially liked.

Alice
Like this:

life is a closed arc
one says,
or did he say

life is a closed heart,
either way,
there is a poem in both

And this

i’m more concerned

about the false spring
that’s about to burst in on us,
little buds

poking their little green heads
out
from the trees

poor little babies
born too soon
& soon to die as winter

returns

And this:


suddenly knowing both,
and from self-consciousness,
self-interest

and ego
and positioning of self
above all else,

the fall
not from some mythical garden
but from the universal soul,

becoming one alone
and distinct
and lonely in its divorce

from the greater all,

[allenitz]

though i cannot imagine ever giving up the rational part of me that will believe only in what is available to my senses, buddhism offers me much more than any religion of things i'd like to believe if belief was possible.

looking at wikipedia, i see buddha as meaning both "the awakened one" and "the enlightened on" - nearly the same, but not quite, awakened one i prefer, suggesting that all who sleep can be subject to an awakening. enlightned one suggests an educational process, one who is enlightened, or changed from without, unlike the awakened who become so directly from their own dreams.

allen

[connied]

This in my humble opinion is the meat of this piece--Made me think for about a minute
-I still like to think that we all linked-we being, plants, animals, humans, rocks--everything on this planet!

the fall
not from some mythical garden
but from the universal soul,