Who Is Prometheus?

Who is Prometheus?

And why is he at Rockefeller Center

At the skating pond?

And will the world end

In fire or ice?

Some say in fire:

The knowledge of who we are

What we have undone.

Others say ice:

Inert, alone, and--forgive me--isolated.

Nobody argues that we will end.

(Have you noticed?)

We will end.

Who is Prometheus?

To steal fire

From Zeus and give it

To mortals.

We set ourselves apart

From the animals with fire.

We set ourselves apart

From father and mother.

Some say this inflamed Zeus

With jealousy

But that’s confusing Zeus with Yahweh,

Olympus with Sinai.

From Harney Mountain,

Zeus sees the fire

That will burn life down.

Prometheus, golden boy of the little pond

In a concrete canyon,

Who are you?

One Deer

My friend is gone,

Having slipped from this world,

Crossed over,

Gone home.

Everyone says death

In a way

That makes it about life.

Not an end

But a passing.

I think about this

As I try to fall asleep

With my daughter, exhausted by grief,

Lying beside me.

Lying awake,

I hear Dylan Thomas

Telling me in that pristine recording

After the first death

There is no other.

There is not.

Death is a lesson

In defining absence

And redefining presence.

I wonder about this

As I walk my dogs in the rain

And the damp air

Combines with the bark

Of a white oak,

Straight, tall, strong,

And claims a universe of space

Full of safety, shade, and squirrels in summer

And full of  promise now.

Moisture and the oak

And the fallen white sky

Take the shape of a young deer

That steps softly before my dogs

Onto our path.

Here I am.

The dogs watch.

I watch.

The deer steps forward

Into the rain

Steps forward again

Steps forward and returns to the woods.

The dogs watch.

This is not a sign.

This is not my friend

Who is dead.

This is life

In the silence of the woods.

The dogs know it

And I am learning.

Work Day

Sound of my voice:

Wag of his tail.

We walk in the early dark.

He leads.

The bears sleep

And the deer

And the squirrels

But not the neighboring dog

With his glowstick collar

And a woman.

He reads the story

Of the sleeping earth

With every breath.

I leave him for work,

Wondering across every mile

About those who sleep.

I am looking for the bear.

A Dream

Soft rain

Incessant, gentle,

Patters on fallen oak leaves,

The beat of a young heart

Curious and aware.

Lean ghost,

Silent, gentle,

Emerges from the fallen oak leaves,

The movement of a pure life

Curious and aware.

The deer

Steps onto the path

Steps forward

Steps back into the woods

Eats moss growing

From a fallen oak.

He stops,

Scratches his ear,

Vanishes.

Or we do,

My dog and I,

Into the morning light,

Slow, soft, silent as a dream.

December

Gray and languid,

Day lights the earth,

Quiet and alive,

But slowing.

Ice around the rocks

Defines the edge of earth

Covered with leaves

That will become earth.

Two dogs bark in the distance:

Take us with you

To the river.

Then, bring us inside.

The river.

The dogs.

The walk.

The dark.

The silence.

The squeak of the door

On its hinge

The rush of warm air.

We bring the river inside.

Beyond us,

The dogs bark.

Speaking the Truth While Rome Burns

Here's a very worthwhile opinion piece from the New York Times that evaluates the Trump presidency vis-a-vis General Mattis's resignation.

If you need a break from Trump's selling of this nation to Russia for his own benefit, the shut down of our government over Trump's border nonsense, and the prospect that our military's withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan will create a political vacuum that will intensify terrorism worldwide, hear this:

And read this if you have a few minutes.  Like Odysseus, remember a country worth fighting for, and then come back and fight for it.

Maybe think about this:  How has this country paid for your tax cut?  I wonder at the hubris of those who thought they could install this idiot, get what they wanted from him, and then manage him out of existence.  These guys overlooked the myth of Pandora.  And we are stuck with the mess. 

Here's the art that an inspired leader can influence.  Read the comments, and consider the intersection of art and politics in our world.  We have not had a like experience in the past two years. There is so much joy in this.  Watch it through, and you will see the tears in the eyes of the women who sing.  Remember what it was like to actually feel something?

The Lyre

The lyre
Hermes gave
Apollo
He fashioned
From a tortoise shell.

 Once a water nymph
Who declined
An invitation
 To the wedding
Of Zeus and Hera,

This child who
Took lightly the life force
Became the instrument
Of angelic sound.

 When Apollo’s Golden hands
Touched those strings,
They sang the story
 Of water, Earth,
Air and light,

Made Apollo
God of music
And redeemer of a wild girl
Who would follow

The course of her own mind
But could not--
Or maybe did--
With Hermes’s help.

Like a River

Who wouldn’t want

The arms of

A poet

A healer

A seer

A sun god

Wrapped around her?

To be safe

Secure

Beautiful

Chosen

Filled with the promise of life?

Who wouldn’t?

Daphne.

Pursued by Apollo

She prayed to her river god father

To keep her

Out of Apollo’s reach.

Hearing her cry,

Peneus

Empowered her to become

The laurel tree

Forever.

And the sun god lifted her up

Sang her song

Healed his own broken heart

Ended her fear:

Made her story one of boundless

Imagination,

The kind we call love.

Daphne and Apollo

Boasting of his defeating Python and establishing his oracle at Delphi, the son god Apollo tells Cupid to put away his bow and arrows because there is no way the son of Venus could match the son of Zeus as an archer.

Like his mother, Cupid has a quick temper, and he means to bring down Apollo for his arrogance.  To settle the score, he fires a golden arrow into Apollo to quicken love and a leaden arrow in to the beautiful Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneus, to deaden love.

So of course Apollo falls in love with Daphne and pursues her.  He begs her to stop running from him, declaring:  “I am/the one who has invented medicine,/but now there is no herb to cure my passion; my art, which helps all men, can’t heal its master.”

But Daphne will remain a virgin.  She doesn’t want whatever Apollo has to offer.  She runs on until Apollo is within reach of her, when she begs her father, “‘Help me, dear father; if the river-gods/have any power, then transform, dissolve/my gracious shape, the form that pleased too well.” 

Daphne metamorphoses into a laurel tree as Apollo’s hand is upon her heart.  Her gain would be his loss, but she gains again; Apollo loves her so much that he honors her by wearing her leaves, which become a symbol of victory.  He tells her she is his tree.

That is a win-win situation, and it is a tragedy.  It’s a win-win because Apollo remains Apollo and Daphne remains Daphne.  There is no rape, no imprisonment, no being carried away.  Apollo is responding to his nature as the son of Zeus and Leto; he has tremendous power but also tremendous compassion--and his love is genuine.  Daphne is responding to her nature as the daughter of Peneus and Ge (Gaia).  Child of a river god and Mother Earth herself, she has “no surrender” tattooed to her soul. 


And off she goes until she feels Apollo’s hand on her heart.  She cries out to her father that she might protect her integrity.  He responds:  he turns her into a laurel tree.

I wonder how that felt to Apollo as he finally felt her warm and beautiful body in his hands.

That moment passes, though,and there she is:  a laurel tree with a lover who promises to wear her leaves everywhere.  The laurel wreath thus becomes a symbol of victory.

Myth expert Joseph Campbell calls this a tragedy because Daphne refuses the life-generating force of Apollo.  I think Campbell sees tragedy because he is focused on Apollo.  Focus on Daphne, and you see life itself impelled by the desire to be just that at all costs.  Freedom has a price, and Daphne pays it.  The tragedy?  Her father, who loves her and desires grandchildren, forsakes his dreams to protect his child’s integrity.

The ancients were engaged in a serious and meaningful conversation about what it means to be alive.When Apollo made the laurel the symbol of victory, he was not being ironic; he was honoring the woman he loved but could not possess.  He is honoring Daphne, who is true to herself even to the point of surrendering her life to protect her integrity.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell argues that Daphne is a failure, that her calling out to her father for help represents her clinging to her childish ego and refusing the call to adventure that would transform her life into the life of a hero.  This argument misses a few things, though.  First, in calling out to her father, she calls out to her own nature; the search for the father is, as Campbell says, the search for the self.  Second, her cry calls for and leads to complete transformation.  She surrenders to that life-changing experience at considerable personal cost.  Third, Apollo accepts the change with grace.  He is not angry or vengeful.  Instead, he honors Daphne by making her story a victory emblematic of victory itself.  The victors who wear the laurel crowns are victorious because they have exceeded personal limitations in ways that extend themselves into greater spheres of influence.  They are heroes who make the return journey.

Cupid--Eros, the god of physical love, in the Greek pantheon--teaches Apollo, son of Zeus, a valuable lesson about humility as the son god and god of music and medicine learns that he cannot have everything he can touch.  Here might be a lesson in the dangers of overreaching.  It’s one thing for Apollo to claim his greatness--and even that’s a bit much for Cupid--but another to lay claim to another’s--Daphne’s.  Daughter of the river god Peneus, Daphne will choose her course, and she won’t be stopped.  Beautiful, eternal, victorious Daphne invites us to think about what is possible when we are true to our natures and how, in doing so, we might take our rightful place under the sun.

Endurance

The roses

Are enduring

The weight

Of rain

Falling

Since last night

And through

This morning.

Thunder, too.

And lightning.

Without Hesitation

“The tropical depression

“Will leave in its wake

“Riptides, undertows, big waves.”

To swim or not?

This is not a new question.

Always, I weigh risk.

Always, I think of the forecasted dangers.

Always, I hesitate on an edge.

As I watch the waves rise.

As I listen to them as they fall before me.

Today, though,

I think of my daughter.

Always, she knows when it is time

To surrender to the greater force

Driving the wave:

She dives through it without hesitation.

She does not surrender to fear:

She emerges on the other side

In deeper, calmer water,

A sea nymph

Sharing the magic of her being

As this lost Odysseus

Looks on.

Eternity

Silent as their shadows:

Five pelicans glide

Above sand dunes,

Equally silent,

As the sea likewise declares

Its ceaselessness

Wave after wave.

Satyr

The satyr bears

The pipes of Pan

In his repose:

The promise of music

And an invitation to ecstasy.

Pan’s companions,

The satyrs partook

In secret rituals

So dangerous they could lead

To personal salvation--

What we might nowadays call bliss.

A writer calls satyrs “savage beasts”

Who represent “man’s unruly, instinctive nature.”

“Savage” seems so harsh, so fearful, a word choice

That I have to look it up;

I want it to mean something other than brutal:

Savage from the Latin salvaticus, an alteration of silvaticus,

Meaning wild, or, literally, of the woods.

Campbell talks about the “divine hygiene of nature”

As Pan’s blessing for those who yield to the call

Rather than surrender to imagined fear.

Mary Oliver puts it this way:

“You have only to let the soft animal of your body

“love what it loves.”

Pan’s pipes call you.

Come if you dare.