It is a Sunday, a time for art, play, thought, and love. In that spirit, here are some reflections in the form of a poem.
The starting point comes from A Spell for Creation by Kathleen Raine (1908-2003), which explores the interconnectedness, cyclicity and unity of things. I initially adhere to Raine’s iambic tetrameter, simply as an exercise in the cognitive discipline of following a specific poetic meter. Later, however, I take considerable poetic licence. So to speak. I also develop and tilt the poem’s thematic meaning with my own thoughts and perspectives. A journey in itself, though the core idea of interconnectedness remains central.
The poem is called “Cantor’s Divine Eternity. Here Plays Infinity” . Eleven stanzas and a coda.
Within the head there lies a cell,
Within that cell there chimes a bell,
Is this life? We can not tell.
But word is out there’s more about
Maxwell’s ways, they cut the haze
For Planck and Hertz and Dick and Kurt
Michael thought an E M thought
A thinker, tinker, who knew no rest
Induction, deduction he saw as nought
(But Gladstone bags his tax, a PM’s behest)
Many a happy-bad meal was brought
Erwin now, with listless lady
Ad absurdum. A bad-box cat-lady
What is Life? The soul sinks shady
Haphaestry, tapestry, a crystal-borne maze?
A decade shy of Cs and Gs, and Ts and As
Yet there in Alpbach now he stays
(Catholic not-Catholic).
Petulant Pauli, he lost his way
No co-host states! (Then dark delusion)
Neutrino ghosts held dreary sway
So black and down, in lone confusion
Sick Pauli sought what Carl Jung taught
Where Eastern mystic ways gave light
One-three-and-seven, deeply sought
And Synchronicity’s keen sight
Reveals new paths beyond the night.
Then Gödel showed what truths may hide
Beyond the reach of formal systems’ pride
Yet fear consumed his mind; he died
Eighty billion cells or so
Mindless mind, they seek-and-loop
Endless search-time myst’ry hoop
Synchrosynchronicity
Brain’s transistor-trillion soup
Twenty Watts of protein goop
Casts what I know I’ll ever know
Of War and Peace, love n’ hate
Scroll n’ soul; an ultimate state?
Is this Life? It is not so
Aleph zero and one and on
Cast me down; in death not gone
Cogito ergo sum I prey
Flick of eye, I die this day
But sweet surprise, I yet rise
Sweet surprise, oh sweet surprise
Ex infinito
Ad lumen eo eo
Finito non-finito.
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Acknowledgement and thanks here to Iain McGilchrist, who introduced me to Raine’s beautiful words.
