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!
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:
When a species evolves into another:
From an Australopithecus to
Homo Habilis into Homo Erectus to the next.
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
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
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
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.
