Pattern (Haiku)

Nice haiku for a drizzly California day...at least in my neck of the woods.

very nice haiku. I've never been good at them myself, but I enjoy reading them

Hi Tom
John really deserves approbation.

I'm so sorry Tom but altough I'm a fan of your writing, I don't quite get the last line.
Is there somethig implied that I don't get?

Please delete this if you wish. It'll be OK with me.

Tom, excellent. Your last line: "worlds mimic themselves."

Your article is Featured in the Triple Name Club.

Cecile and Jessie - thanks for your comments; I'm glad you enjoyed this.

Fred, yes, JFW is such an inspiration to so many in such a far flung array of ways. I apologize for my lack of clarity here, Fred, the trouble is certainly mine and not yours. See the private message I have sent you.

Katherine - Thank you for reading, your kind compliments, and for the invite to your group. I do have a third name, but few are privy to it. :-) Being featured in your group is an honor.

Water, the great sculptor, gives inspiration to the stones to do the same for themselves; I love it, Tom!

I`m overwhelmed by the dedication Tom, but then again buddy, you knew I would feel that, and I thank you for giving me with your kind words the experience of a warm flush of gratitude all through my body before I even understood your words with my reflective mind.

This is a subtle haiku, with a meaning addressed to consciousness itself, which is forever in Heraclitean flux, evading structure and stasis, running toward larger wholes while penetrating empty spaces, leaving accumulations of meanings upon architectonics, and finally, through adaptation, variation, and a sort of stubborn replicant process of imitatio to the nth power, producing simulated worlds where it can revel in its own artificiality and deny the reality it emerged from.

As I said, a very subtle poem....that opens into grandeur.

This works for me as nature poetry, Tom. It seems a remarkably concise, well-turned observation of order in the natural world, those varied iterations and symmetries that hold the line against entropy without quite seeming to do so. (The stream is the river in little; the silt dam is the consequence and mirror, the conservation, of the scoured hole.)

As a poem about consciousness, I'm still thinking it through. You're suggesting, perhaps, that the "world" of the mind is organized in the same way? That it displays this subtle sort of order?

This is a terse but masterful synthesis of the subject, Tom. Mandelbrot patterns come to mind as well. I love the word choices and flow of it!

i love the imagery. i love the idea of ceaseless flow. i feel the scouring and the silt, often in my own life. i also love the comments you have received, as they help me to get this subtle poem of grandeur. thank you very much.

Thank you for the read and comment, Jim. You make a great point, and lead me to wonder at the difference between mimicry and inspiration.

John - As always reading your comment makes me think I should just pipe rudimentary thoughts to you for more crystalline and developed writing. Your insight into the meaning I hoped to convey is on the money, as I sought to contrast the larger perspective of consciousness against the memetic replication proposed by Dennett in "The Selfish Gene." As part of the pre-Sim experience, I find it so intriguing to contemplate the degree of simulation we embrace today without so much as a thought to reality, a reality that is daily transformed, as a crumbling infrastructure morphs its image with the accretion of rust and mineral deposits, until it becomes caricature. I'm not sure I am on board with the idea of memetic evolution, so this isn't a statement as much as notes on an investigation.

James - I appreciate your comments - Haiku should be of a nature context, no? Re: consciousness, I was trying to address the concept of memetics and memetic replication. The idea that our consciousness is an illusion comprised of self-interested ideas and behaviors, vying for reproduction is what made me think of the river depositing its residue in such a way as to reinforce existing "ideas" of what a riverbed should be.

Jan - Thank you for your reaction here - Mandelbrot patterns and fractals are truly amazing natural phenomena. I'm so happy to have caused such a reaction.

Your comment to John is the basis for another eloquent article, Tom...or maybe a reposting of the Haiku with a prose poem to follow...

You know, Jan, I have been struggling for weeks to come up with something on consciousness, specifically along the lines of John's challenge to the pre-Sim group re: the story of the woman diagnosed as unresponsive who then was re-diagnosed after a more technologically savvy method was used to identify whether she was conscious or not. I seem to be unable to deal with this in any kind of artful or meaningful way. Quite frustrating, but, one day the sun will shine. Thank you for your kind remarks.

And eventually those streams create other natural wonders such as the Grand Canyon. In much the same way, when we as people start with just a little something, we can inevitably carve canyons and build mountains once we get the right momentum and direction. Great haiku.

Thanks, Dragonsoul, I appreciate your kind words, and yes, repetition of force and persistence can be a powerful agent. I'm so glad you read this and enjoyed it.

I love the metaphor of using nature to depict stages of human life. The descriptions in the second line show life's processes with great clarity.

so true to nature!

Ed - I can't believe I miscounted the first line!!! You are the first to notice or care or both. Thank you so much for the close read.

Are you suggesting more than just a deletion of punctuation? I get the feeling you have more in mind than just that.

Why did I ever think that haiku was too simple to enjoy? This is great, Tom. We do as we're made to, flowing along the same patterns, a universe in miniature... it's always a delight when three lines can make me thoughtful.

I'm intrigued by Ed's suggestion to cut the comma. I wonder how that would affect the meaning. Could you publish both version, Tom, and look at it that way?

They are both wonderful!

Tom, I suggest you not wear mittens when you count. I like both versions.
I've been a bit under the weather, so sorry to take so long to reciprocate.

I would say the comma gave me pause, but I was more concerned about my colon.

Very creative--runs through me on many levels: visual, auditory, kinesthetic

Nice, Tom, very nice. Better the second way, though. I've just used three commas and I'm exhausted.

Corinna - Haiku always appeals to me because you can write one really fast, and if you are lucky, the required economy can make you look better than you are. :-)

Susan, thanks for the great suggestion. I do try to incorporate advice from others whenever it aligns with what I already think. ;-) Seriously, I learn from these comments every day - thank you for adding to that.

Jan - your comments are always welcome - thank you for coming back.

William, yeah, that would help. Or maybe if I wasn't eating tootsie rolls when counting. Hope you are feeling better. Keep your colon to yourself, please. :-)

Kate, your comments are so kind, and especially welcome from such a talented writer. Thank you.

John, your teaching style is wonderful. I never knew poetry was an aerobic activity. I love the slant.

Metamorphosis given poetic slant through incisive phrases, in fields of evolving image. A photo essay for the soul in three lines and thirteen words. The wilderness brook meanders across the city stream, Tom.

Tom I tried to repeat this pattern in the worlds that mimic themselves and it made me dizzy how many times I found the pattern. You are most definitely right.

i like the 1st one. your line "worlds mimic themselves " - shall live in my memory.