THE TEMPTEST

THE TEMPTEST

A palimpsest memory

so effecting the whole.

Words now forgotten 

once forming a whole,

Evoke an inner quality

evokes inherent distrust. 

The  thoughtless, 

reactionary citizen,

polarized within the day. 

Quickset impulse,

oblivious to precious 

enduring time. 

Thin sheeted ghosts

stomp on by,

gaining nothing 

from Whitman, 

or Longfellow. 

Nothing farsighted

evoking the sublime.

"I think I could turn and live with animals

they are so placid and self-contained,

I stand and look at them long and long,

They do not sweat and whine about their condition;

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.

Not one is dissatisfied--not one is demented with the mania of owning things. 

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind

that lived thousands of years ago;

Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth" (With Animals by Whitman).

Dim sheeted ghosts,

turning away from earth. 

Indignant, malignant, viperidae,

Slither up amongst your swooning

group and see past your narrow palisades

to a deeper, steeper condition.  

The sides of the machine a cold nothingness, 

far harder to reach the sun. 

Wthin closed mind -

A rout from our closed-off enclaves.

We grow farther from the sun,

but my feet still kiss the earth, 

heeding a song not yet sung,

evermore green

I follow the sun.

"Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!—

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul." - ( A Psalm of Life byLongfellow).

© D. Cardew Evans 01/10/11