Friday, March 15, 2013

The Perfect Poem (After Heraclitus)


Mortal, 

It went the way it came, thusly 
Nothing shall be created 

The same. 

 

4 comments:

  1. No rivers hereabouts (save the river of cars, unending), but I have now dipped my whittled wit four times into this poem, and was never the same twice, afterward, though still imperfect -- which cannot be said of it.

    Thankfully.

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  2. "Nothing shall be created

    The same"

    I hear that...

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  3. And I sit in a dark room with lightning splitting the sky. My son downstairs watching the rugby. Easy to imagine the crowd roaring along with this fine poem where nothing ever stays the same.

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  4. Thank you, Tom, Conrad and Jonathan for stopping by my stream. Rereading the fragments of this Ephesian philosopher, one is always struck by how astute and comprehensive his insight was concerning the order of nature—no wonder so many poets have selected him as their daemon, yours truly being no exception.

    BTW, here’s one that was written some years back, after I’d spent a quiet moment by the banks of a nearby river which is no longer so bright and clear, having been polluted by the type of man Heraclitus describes so aptly here:
    “One ought not to talk or act as if he were asleep.”—(Guy Davenport translation)

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