thy brother calls thee

CATENARY TED

The cosmos hangs from a thread, a

lifeline.  Yes, Flem

was with us, up at Verm –

helped Dad, me & Jim (brother)

dig the cabin foundation.  Flem’s

father was MN State

Epidemiologist;

Flem died of AIDS.  There are these themes,

signs... the padre of Hart Crane,

manufacturing Life-Savers...

Abraham with scimitar

squeakin’ by with a warning... O Cain,

thy brother calls thee from the ground.

Hobo sleeps by the river;

his thyrsus nods, a glimmer

of August grass.  Mullein, dock... diamond

pine-cone (piñata by the Po).  The tree,

the tall cedar of life,

Malcolm!  She’s your wife,

you know.  Nehushtana of Liberty.

Evergreen, year-round.  The shadow

owl knows (lives there) –

Spinoza cave-winds tear

up the forgery of terror (low

blow put into Vladimir Kiev-doom).

I’m singin’ with the stars,

Flem, Jim – after the wars.

Mr. Catenary Ted bojangles home.

8.31.16

Spinoza something of a pantheist, no? Identification of God & (created) Nature. Simultaneous linking of God with Love.

Keith Ward comes out of Aristotle-Aquinas philosophical tradition - but challenges the determinism of causal-logic explanation (this is the cause of that) when it comes to cosmology and reality as a whole. This is very hard for the mind brought up on positivism & scepticism to grasp : the notion that God is self-revealing, that divine revelation is real (though blurred & imperfect) filtered through the lenses of different, yet authentic religious traditions. (Ward doesn't hold that all religions are equal, or that their truths are interchangeable; but he grants insights to each of the major religions which can further enlighten each other).

Granting the possibility of revelation immediately confronts one with the mystery of God's nature per se.

I love Ward's analyses because he emphasizes the link between the actual cosmos and creative (divine) will. There is no causal determinism because the universe we experience is a creation - possibly one of many. Again, hard to grasp, immediately, outside of a considered theological orientation. But I think it is something poets & artists can identify with (a shared "process").