W(temporality)e

In college I was introduced to ee cummings' poetry.  Yes, I did not capitalize his name for that is how he always placed his name on his poems.  In his poetry, I learned that there was another side to poetry beyond mere rhyming.  There was the juxtaposition of words, the shaping of the lines and the play of word on words and even in words.  He used parentheses within his lines to flesh out deeper meaning and to pair things together.

I took some of his ideas and techniques in the writing of this poem, perhaps to an extreme.  Even the poem's title uses parentheses to marry the idea that "we" are "temporal"—creatures of time—so much so that it is integral and fundamental to our nature so as to be within us.  Thus the word "temporality" is embedded in parentheses in "We."



W(temporality)e

Futility—
Like fighting rust
                   or rot:
All of today's pleasures
                and play toys
Are tomorrow's haul for the trash
           —bounty for the rats.

The most
W(yes, my dear, I speak to you)e do is
     Prolong The
            Day
—Slipping down
                           ward on an icy mountain—
            When Entropy shall finally conquer all
—Sweet release of Enthalpy
                                              to useless nothingness—

Mortality
    binds our hands from doing,
    blinds our eyes from seeing be-
        yond
    into vastness—into God!
Encompassed about by a hundred and thirty thousand fronts,
   w(and all those, too, who see without seeing)e celebrate
                  (as if victory)
   the momentary lull in the advance of a single front
        (as if w(without non-human help)e did it!).

Futility—
Like empty meaning
             or definition;
Fe(deeply)eling that today's pleasures
                        and fantasies
Are shoveled under
                               with the coffin
      when ends every(is there NOTHING else?!)thing.

But temporality
Was not meant as an end unto
         —ITSELF—
It was rather to give definition to life,
                                   shape to spirits
                                         and
                                life to definitions.
But we ignore this side of us—
    treating the gnawing questions of be-
yond
    as indigestion:
        W(unwittingly)e bu("what is TRUTH?")rp
                      but then
        make an exc("nothing's really absolute, is it?")use for being so rude.
W(oh, philosophical unreasoners)e have lost control—
    hijacked by the spirit of
             —ME—
                                                   and no one else.

W(like blind followers of the blind)e are led about
                in a cor(ours!)pse
               by a dead man.
W(are so separate)e are strangers
    Created in the Image of
                  ONE
    So that w(who are now alienated)e
              may become
                  O(we)NE
                  with
                  O(Three)NE.
Na(space and time)ture being just a framework
      in which Love could Love us into Him.
Yet IDENTITY is not lost in becoming
                 O(not clones)NE
Because Love requires an Individual to love
             and Love that Loves only itself is
                  Gre(not Love)ed.

Futility—
Like holding onto self,
                          to ME:
All that then will remain is emptiness,
        a mere s(full of blackness)hell;
All of the tomorrows will be filled with
              present remorse,
              with disdain for yesterdays.

Becoming ONE with others involves
             DE(dying)ATH;
But it mean so much more
             liv(LIFE)ing.
Like the EXAMPLE who died
                               but lives,
We (now united and unstrangers) live with H(in and through)im
      Separate but ONE,
      ONE yet Individual—
Products of a Father's LOVE;
    Expressions of His Creativity and Diversity;
        Monuments to His Faith(committed forever unto us)fulness!

       Pra(G(Father, Son and Spirit)OD)ise!

 

-D. Benning

19-Jan-1984