Echoes-II
We each are echoes of the ones who've gone,
As they had been of those who'd gone before,
And those will be who follow us in turn.
So each bestrides this stage that we are on
To play a part and then to be no more—
Except as whispers in the earth or urn.
******
The air we breathe and all that's in our bones
Have been dispersed a myriad times before
And so will be again and yet again.
And every word we speak, the silent stones
Have surely heard—and kept within a store,
In which there's still the pleasure and the pain.
******
So if we listen, with our ears and eyes,
We still might find, between the words we speak
And all our actions, those of others past.
How many greetings, smiles and sad goodbyes—
How many rhythms, pulsing strong or weak—
How many echoes, fading slow or fast...
******
So every thought, like every passing cloud,
Has siblings in the future and the past—
And every life is but a stanza more.
So hear the waters murmur soft and loud,
“Of all our ripples, which is first or last?
We each are echoes of the ones before.”
 |
| Blue Ridge Mountains source: unknown |
between Atlantic Ave & 79th St
Brooklyn, New York
2018 February 1st, Thu.
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Related:
Echoes (http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2015/09/echoes.html)
2 comments:
This was the first of my two wordy response to a kind comment (to a Facebook post of this poem) by my friend Charlie:
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Arjun Janah: Yes, Charles. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Things like this need reading over a few times.
The image, with the waves of hills and the pine trees rising, may help. Note that no cloud or tree or hill is identical to the ones around it in space or the ones that preceded it or follow it in time. So also it is with us, multiple twins and echoes though we are in a sense, like rising and falling waves in an ocean that may, for all we know, be eternal and infinite.
Although we may think of ourselves as separate individuals, it seems to me that we arise, like all other life, from the same (metaphoric, but also real, physical and spiritual) ocean, are indeed part of the same wave motion, and descend back into what we always were, although we might have lost sight of it.
A wave crest is not a separate entity from the rest of the wave or from the ocean. We have, like it, no boundary in space or time--no real borders and no real beginning or end.
All our surfaces are porous and in flux. And there is, in your body and mine, probably not a gram of matter or an erg of energy, indeed perhaps not even an atom or a quantum, that was there when you and I were born, let alone conceived.
In this, we are like clouds or storms, except that we have individual genetic, immune and mental memories and also collective cultural memories. These allow us to cohere in form (rather than dissipate), individually and collectively, for a while longer.
These memories give us not only our illusions of individuality but also provide us with a continuity over our conventional individual life spans, while linking us together with our contemporaries, alive or gone, and also with all past generations and those yet to come--not only of our species, but of all.
This was the second of my two wordy responses to a kind comment (to a Facebook post of this poem) by my good friend Charles.
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Arjun Janah: Charles: (continued) Since no cloud, storm, ant, stalk of grass or deer is exactly like another, even in the case of biological twins (whose bodies and minds diverge, with distinct personalities and life histories), Nature is not simply repetitive.
There are repetitive patterns, as there are in all music. But there is also the endless creativity, in Nature, that is there in good music. One can find this in the rich diversity of folk music--the richest and most ancient and yet vibrant source, until our times (when it, like all else, is threatened with extinction). One can find it in the nearly unbroken classical traditions of Africa, Asia and Europe. And one can hear this in contemporary music--even perhaps in that which is most commercially driven and industrialized, and so perhaps degenerate and debased, and therefore also 'degenerative' and debasing.
I think that we, like all other animals and even perhaps all other life, respond to a mix of repetition and novelty. The first provides comfort, familiarity, a pattern we recognize, a rhythm to move to, a place that feels like home. The second provides stimulation and surprise--and sparks our own creativity.
In a sense, we are ourselves a mix of these two elements--repetition and novelty, as is all of life, and as is all of the universe. So we are echoes, as seen in our genes and our mental outlooks and more, but we are also, each of us--ameba, ant, atelope, redwood tree, planet, galaxy... unique.
We see this also in our everyday thoughts, words and actions. Each moment of our existence has in it many echoes of past moments, dating back to infancy and perhaps beyond, but is also like no other.
And if one is attentive, one sees that each moment has in it also portents of the future. This is, most obviously, because we imagine the future, with happy anticipation or dread or all the emotions in between, but also because it is in the nature of the universe, beginning at the quantum level, to be not only aware of and be influenced by the past, but also to anticipate potential futures and be influenced by these possibilities.
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