Odes to Creation, Life, Purpose, Nation Building, and Parenting

Creation

R.E. Slater

March 25-26, 2023

The human mind cannot comprehend

those hoary ages which came before,

nor human breast deny its longings,

yearning long life and fellowship;

measured in eons past it's instincts for

survival's best of self and contrary world.

Formed at once of soil and frail breed, One

with nature, sea and land, beast and primate,

which came before overcoming perils;

all bourne of earth, of starry celestials,

rich in lore, in act and sacrifice, running

to mysteries divine and divinely driven.

Impregnated with renewal divine yet fraught

heavenly fellowships by forces dark and wan;

disrupters to the One, the All, the Creator God

we call Redeemer, Lover, Hope, and Sage;

frail, impoverished, having but one another

against crucibles natural, unwieldy, fey.

To Thee, O' Lord, we submit to mysteries

incomprehensible but assuredly Thine,

to Thy love which runs throughout vine

and branch, to the starry skies above;

Thy hallowed spaces are everywhere about

when met with bent knee to Thee and Thine.

R.E. Slater

March 26, 2023

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

* * * * * * *

Human Evolution

by Ryan Christopher Brandes

October 2012

We open our minds to expand to the times not to pretend there is some end to confine the limits of prime; we defend to remind to dance to the trance we redefine to enhance not to surrender to chance.

We open our hearts to embrace the new space-time transparency, interdimensional race as we become united and one, open to truth we exhibit ourselves as one infinite youth, gifted and new, eternally pure evolved to endure no end to potential, perfect and cured.

We strengthen our bodies and build on each other we love ourselves and love one another we grow and mature and extend to our neighbors but as we think deeper our expansion is greater our planet is one and our galaxy peace to the opening worlds we bring wisdom and ease we do not enslave or deny or deceive but we share our pure knowledge our light and belief.

We raise up our souls beyond science and physics to evolve beyond consciousness confinements and limits our imperial nature shifts to emerge from the boundaries of body and smallness of Earth we expand our perception to include all dimensions from previous eons to future inceptions.

We shift our new world from finite to light, universal, infinite, natural, bright we embrace the day and welcome the night to work with each other to be perfect, upright, to evolve our new planet, our galactic mindframe to expand from micro to cosmically aimed to unlock the portals to open our brains to evolve from old gears to interdimensional spheres uniting creation without hesitation pure as clean water and deep meditation.

* * * * * * *

To Darwin

A poem about human evolution

by N.A. Kazi

June 28, 2021

O, the grandmaster of philosophy!
And the patron saint of biology!

I recite to thee:

I decoupled myself by performing
the most effective therapy
And the greatest meditation of all: poetry;

To observe my motionless body
In search of the mysteries of lostness,
And the paths to self-identity.

I sought that exact moment
When a species evolves into another:

From an Australopithecus to
Homo Habilis into Homo Erectus to the next.

A minute-by-minute record,

A frame-by-frame snapshot

Of the final changes in

The DNA of an embryo

In the womb of its unwitting

Heidelbergian mother that

Engendered the primeval baby-sapient.

That moment, that precious second of

The mutation is a secular miracle,

A natural yet defiled magical process

Of procreation, survival, and growth,

In pursuit of self-promotion

On this Planet Number X

Of the Galaxy Y. Voila!

Welcome to human society:

At the mercy of biochemistry

And genetic coding over zillions of years.

Each incremental incident

Producing that microscopic change

That all adds up to our paranoid existence.

The flawless scientific logic of trial and error,

Mediated by a handsome dose of coincidence,

Cannibalism, and self-preservation.

But were they, too, the naked, feeble

Hominid ancestors of ours, romantic?

Did they love to rhyme

With the opening words of

Their primitive languages?

Did they observe thunder, rain, and rainbow

With similar bewilderment?

Did they watch the night-sky

And it's billions of stars and

Thought, “Is it, one giant

Piece of hanging net adorned

With gems and diamonds?”

Or did they know not any

Precious metals and stones?

Did they see their reflections in the water

And amazed at the beauty of the beholder?

Or like me, they, too, saw shabby images,

As though on a mirror, and frowned,

Groaned, mocked, and took pity

On their own souls and self?

Did they, too, comprehend that

This ephemeral body is but a vessel

For the brain: a watery, fatty creature that

Cannot walk or live outside its host?

We are at the mercy

Of that demigod and its

All-powerful courtesans:

The heart, the gut &

The nervous scheme.

But what’s the point of carrying

Around this tangle of neurons?

Oh, the mind, of course!

It is the domicile of the latter,

Which holds in its palms

The twin portions of id

And super-ego:

The constant tug-of-war

Between instinct and critique.

We know not

Which one is poisonous

And which is nourishing.

It is a great unsolved puzzle,

My polymath friend:

They both might be succulent,

Or both equally noxious.

[Halifax, 28.06.21]

* * * * * * *

As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free

by Walt Whitman

 1
AS a strong bird on pinions free, 
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, 
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America, 
Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee.
 

The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, 
Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of foreign court, or indoor library; 
But an odor I’d bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in Maine—or
 breath
 of an Illinois prairie, 
With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia, or Tennessee—or from Texas uplands, or
 Florida’s glades, 
With presentment of Yellowstone’s scenes, or Yosemite;
And murmuring under, pervading all, I’d bring the rustling sea-sound, 
That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the world.
 

And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union! 
Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee—mind-formulas fitted for
 thee—real, and
 sane, and large as these and thee; 
Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew—thou transcendental Union!
By thee Fact to be justified—blended with Thought; 
Thought of Man justified—blended with God: 
Through thy Idea—lo! the immortal Reality! 
Through thy Reality—lo! the immortal Idea! 

2
Brain of the New World! what a task is thine!
To formulate the Modern.
.
.
.
.
Out of the peerless grandeur of the modern, 
Out of Thyself—comprising Science—to recast Poems, Churches, Art, 
(Recast—may-be discard them, end them—May-be their work is done—who knows?)

By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead, 
To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present.


(And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World brain! 
Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long! 
Thou carefully prepared by it so long!—haply thou but unfoldest it—only maturest
 it; 
It to eventuate in thee—the essence of the by-gone time contain’d in thee; 
Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee,
The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.) 

3
Sail—sail thy best, ship of Democracy! 
Of value is thy freight—’tis not the Present only, 
The Past is also stored in thee! 
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone—not of thy western continent alone;
Earth’s résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship—is
 steadied by
 thy spars; 
With thee Time voyages in trust—the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee; 
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear’st the
 other
 continents; 
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant: 
—Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman—thou carryest great
 companions,
Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee, 
And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee.
 

4
Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes, 
Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky; 
Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all;
Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons; 
Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing, 
Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life; 
World of the Real! world of the twain in one! 
World of the Soul—born by the world of the real alone—led to identity, body, by
 it
 alone;
Yet in beginning only—incalculable masses of composite, precious materials, 
By history’s cycles forwarded—by every nation, language, hither sent, 
Ready, collected here—a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here, 
(The true New World—the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures to come,) 
Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform’d—neither do I define thee;
How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? 
I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good; 
I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past; 
I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe; 
But I do not undertake to define thee—hardly to comprehend thee;
I but thee name—thee prophecy—as now! 
I merely thee ejaculate! 

Thee in thy future; 
Thee in thy only permanent life, career—thy own unloosen’d mind—thy soaring
 spirit; 
Thee as another equally needed sun, America—radiant, ablaze, swift-moving,
 fructifying
 all;
Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy—thy endless, great hilarity! 
(Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long—that weigh’d so long upon the
 mind
 of man, 
The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;) 
Thee in thy larger, saner breeds of Female, Male—thee in thy athletes, moral,
 spiritual,
 South, North, West, East, 
(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear’d alike,
 forever
 equal;)
Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain; 
Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest material wealth and
 civilization must remain in vain;) 
Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing Worship—thee in no single bible, saviour,
 merely,

Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself—thy bibles incessant, within thyself,
 equal
 to any, divine as any; 
Thee in an education grown of thee—in teachers, studies, students, born of thee;
Thee in thy democratic fetes, en masse—thy high original festivals, operas,
 lecturers,
 preachers; 
Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed—the edifice on sure
 foundations
 tied,) 
Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought—thy topmost rational joys—thy love,
 and
 godlike aspiration, 
In thy resplendent coming literati—thy full-lung’d orators—thy sacerdotal
 bards—kosmic savans, 
These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophecy.


5
Land tolerating all—accepting all—not for the good alone—all good for thee;

Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself; 
Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.
 

(Lo! where arise three peerless stars, 
To be thy natal stars, my country—Ensemble—Evolution—Freedom,
Set in the sky of Law.) 

Land of unprecedented faith—God’s faith! 
Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav’d; 
The general inner earth, so long, so sedulously draped over, now and hence for what it is,
 boldly laid bare, 
Open’d by thee to heaven’s light, for benefit or bale.


Not for success alone; 
Not to fair-sail unintermitted always; 
The storm shall dash thy face—the murk of war, and worse than war, shall cover thee
 all
 over; 
(Wert capable of war—its tug and trials? Be capable of peace, its trials; 
For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in peace—not war;)
In many a smiling mask death shall approach, beguiling thee—thou in disease shalt
 swelter;

The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, seeking to strike
 thee
 deep within; 
Consumption of the worst—moral consumption—shall rouge thy face with hectic: 
But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all, 
Whatever they are to-day, and whatever through time they may be,
They each and all shall lift, and pass away, and cease from thee; 
While thou, Time’s spirals rounding—out of thyself, thyself still extricating,
 fusing, 
Equable, natural, mystical Union thou—(the mortal with immortal blent,) 
Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future—the spirit of the body and the mind, 
The Soul—its destinies.


The Soul, its destinies—the real real, 
(Purport of all these apparitions of the real;) 
In thee, America, the Soul, its destinies; 
Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous! 
By many a throe of heat and cold convuls’d—(by these thyself solidifying;)
Thou mental, moral orb! thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World! 
The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine—for such
 unparallel’d
 flight as thine, 
The Future only holds thee, and can hold thee.

* * * * * * *

At The Smithville Methodist Church

by Stephen Dunn

It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,

but when she came home

with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art

was up, what ancient craft.

She liked her little friends.
She liked the songs

they sang when they weren't

twisting and folding paper into dolls.

What could be so bad?

Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith

in good men was what

we had to do to stay this side of cynicism,

that other sadness.

OK, we said, One week.

But when she came home

singing "Jesus loves me,

the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.

Could we say Jesus

doesn't love you?

Could I tell her the Bible

is a great book certain people use

to make you feel bad? We sent her back

without a word.

It had been so long since we believed, so long

since we needed Jesus

as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was

sufficiently dead,

that our children would think of him like Lincoln

or Thomas Jefferson.

Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief

to a child,

only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story

nearly as good.

On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts

all spread out

like appetizers.
Then we took our seats

in the church

and the children sang a song about the Ark,

and Hallelujah

and one in which they had to jump up and down

for Jesus.

I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain

about what's comic, what's serious.

Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.

You can't say to your child

"Evolution loves you.

"The story stinks

of extinction and nothing

exciting happens for centuries.

I didn't have

a wonderful story for my child

and she was beaming.

All the way home in the car

she sang the songs,

occasionally standing up for Jesus.

There was nothing to do

but drive, ride it out, sing along

in silence.