On science (cavatina sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
She does not worry about why things are;
that they exist
to be contemplated or observed,
how they persist,
is far enough for her own simple reasoning,
she does resist
their reason, in rote produces answers,
perfect to devotions of her followers.
She thinks she knows where all things do come from,
far beyond her
kind of scope is metaphysics, physical
she does gather,
she is protected in her own dungeon,
nothing further
she knows about love, joy, fear and sorrow,
as she proclaims things for each tomorrow.
Beyond the stars, the sheer utter darkness,
shines a true light,
beyond the unknown, beyond a ocean,
out of her sight
are things like life to which He answers know,
to her its night
to comprehend the very soul of man,
as mechanical she does what she can.
[Reference: "Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell" by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell
Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered
Figuring what anything is for:
Enough for her devotions that things are
And can be contemplated soon as gathered.
She knows how every living thing was fathered,
She calculates the climate of each star,
She counts the fish at sea, but cannot care
Why any one of them exists, fish, fire or feathered.
Why should she? Her religion is to tell
By rote her rosary of perfect answers.
Metaphysics she can leave to man:
She never wakes at night in heaven or hell
Staring at darkness. In her holy cell
There is no darkness ever: the pure candle
Burns, the beads drop briskly from her hand.
Who dares to offer Her the curled sea shell!
She will not touch it!--knows the world she sees
Is all the world there is! Her faith is perfect!
And still he offers the sea shell . . .
What surf
Of what far sea upon what unknown ground
Troubles forever with that asking sound?
What surge is this whose question never ceases?
poem by Archibald MacLeish
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On The End Of The World (Cavatina Sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
Behind the scenes they act, while on the stage
life is a dance
and we fall for the show and laugh and play
in romance,
as in quick-time we are very smitten,
are in a trance
as some Bee-bee Bob the clown laughs and cries;
men go off to war to kill and some dies
and then still lurking are unseen beings,
in sheer darkness;
they poise, do mislead and cover their tracks,
with great aloofness
they turn all beliefs in nothing at all,
bring lawlessness,
try to drag most of humanity down
to wait on great disaster as their own.
[Reference: 'The End of the World' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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The Night Dream (Cavatina Sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
It had been a dream but seemed much too real;
her eyes, her voice,
had a quiet kind of lovely quality,
even her poise
had maturity, some kind of gentleness,
with no noise
but the buzzing of bees at a flower
while we lay down in fields of white clover.
The sun fell hot on our skins, her smile was
very dazzling,
while her soft hand gently touched my face,
there was something
known in the way that she did speak with me,
how she did fling
her hair back, while my head did gently rest,
on her soft heaving perfect naked breast.
Love I do not know she said and smiled,
but she was mine,
while we kissed in moments of pure bliss,
drank some white wine,
talked about some things close to the heart,
the curving line
I traced of her bended lovely back
while the greatest pure joy we did not lack.
It had only been a rapturous dream,
that was fading
but her skin, her smile was kind of special;
away wading
into the vast ocean of memory
until reading
from the magazine you looked up at me,
I could not pass when your face I did see.
[Reference: 'The Night Dream' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Will Nature At A Time Be Really Lost? (Cavatina Sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
Will nature at a time be really lost,
no snowflake fall
as the world becomes extremely hot,
while big and small
live in a man-made kind of sheer hot hell?
If man kills all;
the fish, each bird, each animal and tree,
what's living will at a time, no more be.
No bird will sing, or even be flying,
tranquility
will be gone in a world as stark as stone,
each thing lovely,
each leaping fish, diving crying great eagle
will die slowly,
when all of the ozone layer is gone
and the greenhouse effect just lingers on.
[Reference: 'The Snowflake Which Is Now And Hence Forever' by Archibald MacLeish.}
poem by Gert Strydom
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She Does Not Need Any Praise (Cavatina Sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
The greatest happiness she have given
today to me,
in the ways that together our lives is,
tranquillity
is in each smile, like a hot summer day,
totally free
she does her duty in words and her ways,
she acts unhindered like the sun's rays.
Fresh loaves of bread, lovely food she spreads,
great joy she finds
in her selfless acts that brings happiness,
free like the winds
her feet run while she lights candles, sometimes sings;
one of her kind
my wife is, she does not need any praise
as she loves with an amazing true grace.
[Reference: 'Poem in Prose' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Graduate (cavatina sequence) (in answer to Archibald Macleish)
In three years or four, holy beliefs are slain,
He did not make
either man or the earth, Charles Darwin's
theory does take
centre stage at great universities,
nonsense do rake
as mere myth the Bible into the ground,
learned men sound to themselves profound;
like gods they toss and play with all their students,
as memories
of God and His great things they cause to dwindle;
flowers and bees
as lust become simple chemical yearning,
they teach duties,
to be like gods in self actualization;
they destroy God and his creation
while magic things like the force of life
stays beyond science,
while man is bound to facts and to his own
experience,
cannot measure to an almighty being;
with patience
God and His character of love remains,
mere man struggle on in his life of pains
while still is lingering the truths of youth,
love is beyond
the bounds of man's mere own observations,
the simple bond
to survive on earth, bound by time and space,
does correspond
with a higher intelligent being
whose selfless power sustains everything.
[Reference: "Baccalaureate" by Archibald Macleish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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The art of poetry (cavatina sequence) (in answer to Archibald Macleish)
A poem should touch, should palpable belong,
it should reach out,
with a kind of eternal caring truth;
it should scream, shout
of each injustice and pain that do remain
and be about
almost anything or each happening,
as something that is truly worth saying.
Not silent or dumb it falls on the ear,
as it's profound,
in a great symphony of the purest
kind of clear sound,
its rhythms do ring with every line
it is not bound
by politics, machinations of men
and can be a blessing or an omen.
[Reference: "Ars poetica" by Archibald Macleish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life - to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To know with true conviction (in answer to Johannes Prins)
To know with true conviction and to believe
that God does exist, is active
in the things that do happen on earth,
to at times ask advice from Him,
as if He is carrying the cares of the world,
may claim the faith of a child
that blindly trusts
but without Him I am blind and shaking
and I know that all things come to nothing.
[Reference: "glo" (believe) by Johannes Prins.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Journalism wishes to tell what it is that has happened everywhere as though the same things had happened for every man. Poetry wishes to say what it is like for any man to be himself in the presence of a particular occurrence as though only he were alone there.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The To-Be-Forgotten
I
I heard a small sad sound,
And stood awhile among the tombs around:
"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are you distrest,
Now, screened from life's unrest?"
II
--"O not at being here;
But that our future second death is near;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!
III
"These, our sped ancestry,
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs can you descry
With keenest backward eye.
IV
"They count as quite forgot;
They are as men who have existed not;
Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;
It is the second death.
V
"We here, as yet, each day
Are blest with dear recall; as yet, can say
We hold in some soul loved continuance
Of shape and voice and glance.
VI
"But what has been will be --
First memory, then oblivion's swallowing sea;
Like men foregone, shall we merge into those
Whose story no one knows.
VII
"For which of us could hope
To show in life that world-awakening scope
Granted the few whose memory none lets die,
But all men magnify?
VIII
"We were but Fortune's sport;
Things true, things lovely, things of good report
We neither shunned nor sought ... We see our bourne,
And seeing it we mourn."
poem by Thomas Hardy
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Sight Of The Beautiful
My God what a beautiful sight, its the most beautiful I have ever seen. My Lord it is amazing what you can created by just saying simple words. Sometimes in life things can be simple but other times there that can be a hail storm on a sunny day. Many say that life is hard and death is simple, for as life comes with complication, death comes with freedom of letting go. Oh God, My God oh is this so beautiful, beautiful the stars in the night shy, beautiful as the pillar of creation, beautiful as the earth from the moon, and beautiful as a first kiss. My God Oh God how is this so beautiful? For such simple words as "let there be" can alter into reality, what all of earth should see, something that you have created just for me. Oh God, My God I love you so, for you have showed me the way to all that is beautiful. Oh God, My God for this you are beautiful, as beautiful as a rainbow in the lunar shy, those are rare to see, but so is the one whose eyes are on the sparrow. The things make you beautiful my Lord, and your beauty keeps me going, to see tomorrow, to see another day, to see everyday, and to eventually see you. Oh God My God you created beauty in its magnificence, and you never demand anything in return, only ask to return our love by loving. For we are created by of love, out of love, for the purposes of love, and that you, nay We can not be more beautiful. Oh God My God what a beautiful sight.
poem by Augustus Gatlin
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Answers
I kept my answers small and kept them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bullwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I kept from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, still I hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow.
And all the great conclusions coming near.
poem by Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell
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Rosemary
For the sake of some things
That be now no more
I will strew rushes
On my chamber-floor,
I will plant bergamot
At my kitchen-door.
For the sake of dim things
That were once so plain
I will set a barrel
Out to catch the rain,
I will hang an iron pot
On an iron crane.
Many things be dead and gone
That were brave and gay;
For the sake of these things
I will learn to say,
"An it please you, gentle sirs,"
"Alack!" and "Well-a-day!"
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Autumn (In Reply To Archibald Macleish)
Like the end of life that comes with old age,
Autumn stripped
turns most of the trees into skeletons,
in cold nipped
days are windswept, the sun without its glare,
we are gripped
by the first spells of winter that is coming,
as if death is already in homing.
[Reference: Immortal Autumn by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Freedom is the right to one's dignity as a man.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Some Things I Know
(burton collins/sally barris)
Theres some things I know to be true
Snow is white and the ocean is blue
Rain is wet when it falls from the sky
And the stars come out every night
And just as sure as the sun will rise
The love is real you see in my eyes
Plant a seed and it will grow
Some things I know
Theres some things in life I need
Water to drink, air to breathe
A place to rest when I need sleep
When Im hungry, food to eat
As sure as I need the lord above
Thats how much I need your love
I need shelter from the cold
Some things I know
Theres some things in life I want
A house with a porch, trees out front
Someone to talk with, someone to hold
And walk with as we grow old
And I want all my dreams to come true
And I want them all with you
And I just had to tell you so
Some things I know
Theres some things I know to be true
song performed by by Lee Ann Womack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rocket Science
My little boy once asked me
"Mummy, what is space?
Is it all just empty? "
I looked into his face.
I hesitated somewhat
before I gave reply
for I am not a scholar
and that is rocket science.
My answer was as follows,
you may not agree,
but my little boy was satisfied
and comforted by me.
I told him "there are moons,
stars and comets too,
but we just cannot see them
from our sitting room.
If we could switch a light on,
in space, just like at home,
We might see wondrous things,
but, for now, we just don't know.
Imagine for a moment
in this room, right where we are
A light bulb is the sun
and we are all the stars.
If we turn out the light
there's nothing we can see,
but when we turn it on again,
we see many things.
I often think that space
is like our pitch black room,
and one day men will light it
and it may be quite soon! "
My little boy looked up
at the big night sky outside
and said, "I understand now mum"
and rubbed his sleepy eyes.
I really hope I satisfied
his curiosity and one day
when he's grown up
he'll explain it all to me.
poem by Ruth Walters
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