No Matter How Golden the Beach or Blue and Deep and Wide the Ocean, Footprints are Needed      An Ontological and Epistemological Sonnet

“Know thyself” ~ the temple at Delphi

If Friday left no footprints, would he be

A Man?  If Robinson had not been quite

So lost in desperation, would he see

Them?  Footprints on the shore, though, were seen quite

By loneliness and overwhelming need

For maleness other than the pale man’s own.

Most human hearts have holiness in greed

For friendship and companionship.  Alone

A man’s not quite a man, not really, so

The question turns.  Was Robinson a man

Until he found his Friday, and thus know

Himself?  Did rhymelss Crusoe really scan?

  Each man is more a castaway until

    He rhymes and scans with others in a thrill.

~ Phillip Whidden

If two trees fall in the forest and no one hears them, did they fall?  Were they trees?   Was there a forest?  Is there gravity?