Spring Song

Slow away the old year passes

            when the silent flowers
            write our tunes
            and tell us how to sing them.

Dawn alone has known it from the first,
            the subtlety of their muses,
            guiding them open with warm light,
            to reveal the vibrant chorale.

That is the way of spring:
            the flowers awaken under the sun,
            whose songs awaken our senses,
            until we cannot but join them, singing.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Civil Discourse 101

Discourse is a form of communication, more commonly referred to as discussion or debate. These days, we seem to be really bad at it. Instead of exchanging ideas, we seem to be talking past each other.

Yelling. We hear a lot of it—as if loudness is required, in order to get the point across. The folks that are yelling seem really intent on being heard, but when their turn to listen comes along, the faculty of hearing seems missing. So, many exchanges are not exchanges at all, but shouting matches where the one with the highest decibel level wins. Yelling at and past one another, but neither side being heard.

Lost, in the yelling and escalating anger, are the issues, not to mention possible solutions.

Fifty years ago (nine months before I was born) on this date in 1961, John F. Kennedy gave his inauguration speech, of which I excerpt the following passages:

So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals…

Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah -- to "undo the heavy burdens, and [to] let the oppressed go free."¹



And, if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor -- not a new balance of power, but a new world of law -- where the strong are just, and the weak secure, and the peace preserved.



All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days; nor in the life of this Administration; nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

Those words are as timely and fresh, today, as they were when they were first spoken. There is a lot more in that speech that makes it seem dated; the Cold War and balance of power in the world is clearly at issue. But if we focus on the bits that I have printed here, we should see that we have a lot of work to do; we have not passed "Go" with very much of Kennedy's list of goals.

A lot has happened in fifty years, but not the realization of that bright and shining dream. And in that time we have belabored much the issues that divide us, without ever realizing the great promise of justice, security and peace.

I ask you to remember the promise, and to renew it in your heart.

I ask us all to begin anew, to relearn civility, to renew our commitment to the dream, renew our efforts in civil dialogue, that we may finally, and as a united front, discover the path of action that will make the dream a reality.


//


Kennedy, John F. Inaugural Speech, 1961. http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres56.html

The Death of a Blog? Perhaps

While trying to share poems from this blog to my FaceBook page, I received a message that my blog was being blocked due to having been flagged as “spammy” or “abusive”.

Hmmm. Really?

There are entities posting all day, comments, sharing, etc. My blog is small potatoes, supposed to be an exercise in creativity and critical thinking about current events and trends. As I have mentioned in a previous entry, I do not monetize the blog because it just doesn’t make sense to me to do so; I continually run across blogs that are so covered with ads that the actual content is almost impossible to find. I claim copyright protection for my work and cite the work of others where it has been mentioned.

Really? Poetry is “Spammy” or “Abusive”?

Interesting that my blog could be construed as that, when there are so many out there that literally incite people to violence, or aid in the trafficking of porn. My blog does not do that. Moreover, if I speak of specific people, it is never with full names, unless referencing an author whose work I have explored. This is a creative exercise, with an occasional foray into commentary and critical thinking.

Have I been posting too frequently? Once a day does not seem like very much. If this has been offensive to my small network of friends and even smaller group of followers, I truly am apologetic. I am a big girl; I could have received an email from you.

I suspect, however, that it is not a person that has made a complaint. I think it is a computer program that has made a flag. Now, if said computer program were really doing its job, the world might be saved from some of the real cyber trash, the real bullying, the real spam and abuse. But, no, a small potatoes poet is selected. It would be funny if it weren't so ridiculous. This is, after all, what the science fiction writers have posited over the years: machines and programs will make the determinations, not people.

I suspect that I am not the only decent person being harassed and discouraged.

The spoilers will ruin the internet. To whom am I referring? Those individuals who steal and mirror the work of individuals in other locations so that they can promote spam and ads, hate or even unsavory images of a prurient nature. Scrapers and sploggers.

There is no such thing as self-policing. There is no such thing as free. We live a delusion if we believe that electronic information is any better or any safer or even more environmentally sustainable than a printed book. We live a delusion if we believe we cannot function without smart phones. (I have a “dumb” phone and little artifact called an “address book”. Yes, please laugh, I know it is amusing. I am an anachronism. But when my computer blows up, I have all my addresses and account numbers listed where I can get at them, not to mention all my files backed up to auxiliary drives.)

The dream of the internet could well die. The death would be caused by hacking, identity theft, plagarism, over-exposure of minimal, sub-standard or shallow information, or, heaven forbid, misinformation and untruth replacing information and truth. Email is already a minefield of unwanted ads. People are afraid to answer their phones, due to the increased volume of solicitations—despite their numbers being listed on the no-call lists. What can we expect, if there is no enforcement? When people become overwhelmed, they will decide to unplug. E-commerce, business, networking needs to be thinking about that now, not when they start losing customers.

And what of creativity? Could this be construed as censorship? It is embarrassing. Oh, not to me, this does not embarrass me.  It is embarrassing (or should be) to a set of industries and information portals that expect to be making a lot of money very soon.

When creative people like me get fed up, what happens? Happily, I can go back to pencil and paper. Printing. Paper-based publishing.

Ultimately, this kind of thing (what I have experienced here) is what will keep hardcopy publishing alive. 

When the electronic world eats itself from the inside to the out, where will we all be?

Think on this, I beg you.

By the way, I have sent in my objections through the proffered form. I have not heard anything back. I look forward to hearing back from someone. If I don't hear from someone, I'll be signing off. 

It all seems so ridiculous. No, it doesn't just seem so--it IS.

I’ll keep you informed, if I can. This kind of thing impacts us all.

Hearing

Listen, listen to the sounds of life,
As they roll through your ears
And into your being,
Vibrating as the music of life;
Listen, and be at peace,
Knowing that you are alive within that music,
That your own being is part of life's vibration.

Listen, listen, but don't think too hard;
The ears hear, the mind thinks,
But do not hear within the mind,
Hear within the heart;
Listen, and be at peace,
Knowing that you live by the heart, the heart alone,
And that your heart is the pulse by which life beats.

Listen, listen to life pulse,
Let life sound in your temples,
Life reverberates through your being,
Vibrating as a single tone of unity;
Listen, and be at peace,
Knowing that the next breath you take
Is conscious of all the possibilities of Being.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Healing

       —in memoriam A. C.

When the day grows late,
reach out for the setting sun;
think forward and remember
you are home.

Do not look back—
train your sight forward,
tune your heartstrings westward:
there lie beginnings in all endings.

Your endless song plays on,
reaching for the setting sun;
over the farthest dimensions,
tune your heartstrings to Infinity.

Dawn awaits you,
Day cannot break without you;
there can be no rising in the east
until your music calls day forth anew.

Think forward,
your home awaits you,
your music, your rising song,
shall call for us a new day, 'ere long.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Healing A

Arose In Winter

i.m.  Pauline D. (1922-2011)

She had filled every role,
from child to grandmother,
from partner to friend,
from advocate
to the glue,
which holds people together,
if they will allow it to do so.

People mattered most:
family,
community,
the joys of fellowship;
the affirmation,
and meaning, of life—
a gracious and flourishing tree.

Time went on,
slowing movement,
but never dulling sense
in those matters
that meant most.

But, winter had come
and her tree
had long been losing
its precious leaves;
all her friends
were gone.

Home and place
had contracted,
from mansion to house,
to now a compartment,
too small to contain
the grandness or the minutiae
of her experience, much less
the people, places and things
that had been her life
and meaning.

The last leaf on her tree,
she realized.

I don’t know what I’m waiting for,
she said.

Though brought low by illness,
still was she able
to feel her feet
roaming the beaches
that had long memorized
her footfalls and
to hear the voices of those
whom she loved,
and who loved her.

Systems failed, though,
body resistant to the will.

Take me home,
she said.

From a final comfort
in her own bed,
she let herself go;
a well-loved, well-lived leaf,
the very last on her tree,
she let herself go,
to drift downward
to the ground.

Take me home,
her spirit breathed.

She was answered
by a breath of wind
that raised her up,
a small fanfare of fluttering free,
and carried her off to the sea.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Phasing

Tired.

Never too tired to read, though.

Propped up, in bed.

Sampling. Three books, this time.

Words rise from the pages, to etch their similar forms on the slate of my internal cognition apparatus. They flow silently, vicariously. Descriptions and dialogue become a soundscape, as they pass through the forest of neurotransmitters that compose the functionality of my singular body electric.

There is shadow life beyond these pages, their margins and my peripheral vision, internal and external. 

Intermittently, tropes rise up, from time now and time immemorial—melding into a timelessness and tirelessness—oscillating and calling for my extra notice. In my brain, on the page, and within the seamless flow of silent, but sounding, semiotic pragmatica, they arise. 

Meanwhile, sleep has sent out its call for me, as well. The filling moon pulls at the biosystems, urging them to fall into sync with the trope grid, and join the music of the spheres.

Fall, surrender; let go unto rest.

Words on the page, as well as words on the mind, waver. Tired eyes, sampling, waver.

Night of mystery.

For, through some tiny fissure, something extra comes. Working through the maze of sign upon verisign, word upon very word, singing through the thicket of being, non-being, reflection, abstraction, wave and particle—perhaps on the cusp of change from potential to kinetic movement—it comes.

Not on the page, not on the lucid mental slate, not of moon nor ocean nor body—but, of some other.

Some other—not of my life or moment—joining my perception.

A message. A descant of some sort, a harmonic attachment, perhaps in syncopation to my rising melodic waves, causing my notice. 

A message. I reach in, and it retreats. I pursue it, but cannot find the thread to grasp. Shy, it slips further away, back into its hidden fissure. 

Wait! Don't go! I want to perceive you!

But, it slips again, even farther away, and in perfect reflection, I slip away into the repose that has been awaiting my necessary arrival.

And, as I go, I make this covenant between the hidden music and myself, as we retreat in opposing directions: I will find you, I will hold you; I will understand.

We will yet sing together, sonorous and simpatico.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen