Predilection

This is the weirdest bug--I can't make the last line indent. Please try to imagine it so!

Amy--thanks for not giving away the meaning right away!

Very nice, Gerry. I particularly like

But you never see it come

Until you create my disappearance

I guess I would like that line. :-)

I think you give too much credit to the satellite watchers, though. I don't know that they see the disappearances before OR after.

Nice read for a Friday, with classes over (still grading for the weekend, tho.)

A fascinating riddle of a poem, Gerry, that stretches one mind to the limits of the cosmos but also finds the secret of life in tired blood. I´m tempted to assay that you are referring to life itself, perhaps in the form of the ¨selfish gene¨that replicates and evolves (I think of the line ¨You think you are my master/ because you write me into a formula¨) but you may be hunting bigger game, that is to say, energy expressed as consciousness, that is to say, immanence.

Whew, nice try, John! No, it's something much more prosaic than that. Since it's been up all day, it's very tempting to let the secret out now, but I think that if John Beck gets here, he's going to nail it immediately. Here's one little hint--the next to last line has the best clue.

A very interesting puzzle of a poem Gerry - is it something as simple as water?

You got it, Boris! Except that there is nothing simple about water except our idea of what it is...

You're right. You and Dr. Emoto, the water crystal guy.

Now that I read it again I can appreciate the allusions in this poem such as the description of the hydrogen bonds that bind water molecules together as "I am attracted To myself".

So, do I win some kind of a jackpot Gerry? Perhaps you can send me a crystal of genuine American snow as my winning prize?

Actually I confess that I probably had an unfair advantage because I did remember talking to you on the phone about this topic.

Jackpot? Well, Boris, I really hadn't thought about it when I wrote this. My first clue to the difficulty of this was when my wife didn't get it, and no one knows more about my predilection for water than her. The process becomes something of a metaphor for the quest to bring water to a place where we understand it more widely. Some amazing people have been trying their best for nearly a hundred years with little progress. Water seems so simple to us who have it.

I'm sorry to say that American snow is not nearly as valuable as Australian, but I'll ponder an appropriate prize and get back to you.

Carolion and Liz--Dr. Emoto is one of those amazing people who have been a voice for the nature of water. Thanks to you both for finding joy in this poem!

I thought it was about weather and our attempts to modify it. I can clearly see now it is about water. I don't want to be the only person giving critique, but I felt the line,
'Because you write me into a formula' was lacking in imagery compared to the other verses. I understand that the word formula is a must for this verse and the poem, but just felt there could be a way to say it that doesn't sound so simply factual.

Here I come late-again-Larry and all the secrets are out.
So the poem became all the more intriguing as I knew what the topic was but your oblique arrows were fascinating. Great poem.

Gerry...what does it mean to have a "prediction for water?" Could you explain that just a little?

William--that's an interesting thought and I see what you mean, but I think I like the fact that it jolts you. The idea of reducing water to a formula should be jolting.

Fred--it's a predilection, a predisposition or liking for something which is not necessarily based upon anything logical. In my case there is a powerful scientific side and something more powerful on the spiritual side.

Thanks for returning, Amy. It's both curious and appropriate to me how difficult it was to figure out, but that seems appropriate because that's what water is. Thanks to all commenters for helping me begin to write about this subject which is so dear to me.

Sorry I missed the party, but the flow goes on! I wasn't getting it either, because, well, I'm only on my second cup of tea, because my humors aren't flowing yet, because the title is about you and then in the poem it speaks for itself. Like John FW, I was trying to see you talking about reincarnation, but that is the "higher water" flowing, I guess.

Huge, isn't it! I love that you have this predilection.

And about the little annoyance of the indent, you can try doing a return after that line and then coming back and doing the spaces ahead of the line. If that doesn't work, you go into the html code and see what's ahead of the word "Because" -- a little group with "span" in angle brackets and ampersand plus nbsp plus semicolon several times and then slash "span" in angle brackets to close it. Copy and paste that ahead of your final line. the little ampersand-to-semicolon unit is a non-breaking space, which is not collapsed like regular spaces when html is read by the browser.

Which bit of extreme practical dullness can be flowed back into the commentary by observing how, while natural systems have the sun's energy powering the flow-forms of water including ice and steam, a computer has electrical energy flowing around like water, energizing the flow of codes and programs (like plants and animals) to create the cyber-world we experiences.

As Herakleitos (Heraclitus) say, "It's all flow."
And he should know.
And you plumb the depths of its mystery
in your supercool video.

When I began reading it, I thought 'nature' and that the predilection wasn't yours, but nature's. Then I expanded my thoughts to earth's predilection. Water is so perfect! This has been an interesting read. Thanks!

lovely, gerry - and yes, water is so powerful. you've written this quite beautifully.