Reception

well done ty

Connect is so many ways more than electronically -- the antennae of awareness

Perfect expression of our two (or is it three?) worlds problem. Spending most of my time on a ridge on an off-shore island, I'm grateful for "the bars" I get. But what I get from trees and flowers and wildlife and insects and the air sun moon - and the shore when I get to it - has been "informing me" for two years with a whole different reality.

There is a battle for the soul, and neither of these two sides ought to win out completely over the other. The point is just what you make so neatly in your last two lines:

The answer is more than I can predict
But my antenna is up wherever I stand

We are the answer, not as we have been and are, but as what we are becoming.

Carol--thank you for taking time to read this!

Beryl--I love that line, "the antennae of awareness." Now that I'm reading your work I know how good your antennae are.

John--A comment from you is like receiving a well-crafted poem in return. If we really had Beryl's "antennae of awareness," would we feel any need for electronic connections at all? I might have said no until I read your thoughts, but none of us are Whitman, Thoreau or Castaneda, as much as we might admire them. At some level we know we are creatures of our time who still look to be more.

Gerry, you made me pause and think at my own" signal fade."
Sounds like a poem of life, not just the directly alluded to electrical connect.
Electric waves, thoughts flying in the waves, lives lived in those electrically managed bars-and our dependence on connectivity.
Worth pondering over ...

It's hard to add to what John has said...there are two worlds, and often we miss the signal "soft and keen" of the natural one. It's easy to lose that signal amid the thrashing we take each day in the electronic kingdom. It's a good question to ask in comparing these two worlds - what are we looking for in our connections.

(Less trivia and survey questions!)

"It's easy to lose that signal amid the thrashing we take each day in the electronic kingdom." So true, and your words remind me of my original intent, Tom. Thank you!

This may seem a non sequitur, but your three tight abab stanzas here not only made me feel your puzzlement at the ¨reception¨of a voice in a natural setting, but also recalled those mountain climbers not too long ago on Everest who desperately called their loved ones when they knew they were dying from the cold and the thin air and the lack of hope. When we have no more oxygen to breathe with, do we still carry the essential spark to ¨only connect.¨ This poem is a meditation on the ubiquitousness of our isolation precisely because we can always ¨get in touch¨, and it is moving and enigmatic at the same time. I enjoy poetry that makes me understand ¨wherever I stand¨, and wherever I fall, alone to myself. Your sense of the mystery of the electromagnetic bandwidth to the geocentric human ( in our heart of hearts, even Copernicus is an enemy) speaks to our dilemna of sharing while alone, always alone. Ecce homo.

I was thinking I have to wait till I get to school tomorrow to consult my Latin dictionary for "Ecce homo," but I remembered that I could look on line. It wasn't much help, I'm afraid.

I feel like I'm fawning, but I have to tell you that getting a comment like this is the answer to all the years of wishing that someone would tell me something useful about my writing, and it's so inspiring to think you found something enjoyable here because your poetry is so intellectually challenging and stimulating to me. "The ubiquitousness of our isolation" and "in our heart of hearts, even Copernicus is an enemy" are lines so densely packed with meaning that they just send me soaring. I had something drop into my brain in Spanish two nights ago that expresses my feelings about being able to read the things that you and other poets are writing. I'm going to go and work on finishing that now. Thank you very, very much.

Gerry,

A very fine article and subsequent commentary.

This age has given some people a veritable lifeline, those that cannot connect other than electronically, for instance the manic depressive recluse that is my son, bless him.

I personally would prefer to have lived in what I believe to have been a far better age, the forties, the age of romance. But I live now. And here I am on Gather talking to you with my fingers. Ain't it great? I think so.

Yes, Barbary, it is indeed. I would like to be able to time travel to experience other ages, but right here and now is where I live and I want to be most of all.