If I were dying, I would say to you,
“My heart will soon be dead but what you need
To know is that — no matter what — all through
The cosmos one recurring, mystic creed
Is whispered. It is far too mute to be
Picked up by scientific notice, or
For martyrs hearing sympathetically
Unless they put aside their tortures for
The bliss of ecstasy. This gospel thrills
The smallest subatomic fragment in
Our universe. A silent echo spills
Through all the gaps in God and through your sin. . .I will and won’t be here when I am gone, …..But love and I will be in every dawn.”
Do you want to close the quotation you begin in line two with end quotation marks at the end of the poem?
Great poem. Of course I like the combination of two of the “big universal” themes: love and death. And, yes! We DO find love within the universe which exists! Love became “emergent” in it, in and through us, if not elsewhere (and, who knows, perhaps in some other worlds as well?). NOT that we have to make love the be-all of the entire universe, via an anthropocentric GOD who can impose our own values upon all of everything (even the inanimate rocks of some forever lifeless planet, say). No, we don’t have to only believe in love if it is the majority report for the entire universe—we don’t only have to be bandwagon fans of love who can stand up for it if we think it ultimately WINS over everything else (even death) in the universe. No, surely we can stand up for what we experience and believe . . . even if that is only a minority report within this larger universe. It is amazing enough that love exists at all, perhaps. Amazing and wonderful. It gives meaning enough to this whole universe—for us who can’t help but think teleologically. This universe which might as well have existed with blank dawns which never knew any life, or thought, or love, just icy or fiery or rocky worlds rotating so as to catch some star’s blank light. But, yes, in us, even that can be . . . viewed with awe and love, perhaps? BEING itself?! Even the being of lifeless yet still awesome planetscapes which somehow we can still view aesthetically, view with love?
Thanks for pointing out that error. I’ve fixed it. I suppose that long sentence went on so long that floated off into some exoplanet. I think the animists such as the Shintoist might disagree with some of your comments.
Do you want to close the quotation you begin in line two with end quotation marks at the end of the poem?
Great poem. Of course I like the combination of two of the “big universal” themes: love and death. And, yes! We DO find love within the universe which exists! Love became “emergent” in it, in and through us, if not elsewhere (and, who knows, perhaps in some other worlds as well?). NOT that we have to make love the be-all of the entire universe, via an anthropocentric GOD who can impose our own values upon all of everything (even the inanimate rocks of some forever lifeless planet, say). No, we don’t have to only believe in love if it is the majority report for the entire universe—we don’t only have to be bandwagon fans of love who can stand up for it if we think it ultimately WINS over everything else (even death) in the universe. No, surely we can stand up for what we experience and believe . . . even if that is only a minority report within this larger universe. It is amazing enough that love exists at all, perhaps. Amazing and wonderful. It gives meaning enough to this whole universe—for us who can’t help but think teleologically. This universe which might as well have existed with blank dawns which never knew any life, or thought, or love, just icy or fiery or rocky worlds rotating so as to catch some star’s blank light. But, yes, in us, even that can be . . . viewed with awe and love, perhaps? BEING itself?! Even the being of lifeless yet still awesome planetscapes which somehow we can still view aesthetically, view with love?
Thanks for pointing out that error. I’ve fixed it. I suppose that long sentence went on so long that floated off into some exoplanet. I think the animists such as the Shintoist might disagree with some of your comments.
You are my hero.