Sunday, December 15, 2019

Lightly, from a Star - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


Lightly, from a Star


"All men by nature seek for knowledge"

-attributed to Aristotle


The hopeful idea that all men seek for knowledge
Is not readily demonstrable just now
For many seem to be enwrith’ed in
A hangman’s loop of self-validation

An Ouroboros or Jormungandr
Not of infinity but finity
Who looks into a shadowy cave-pool
And sees only himself fading away

The hopeful idea that all men seek for knowledge
Must fall upon them lightly, from a Star


Exposition is probably unnecessary, but just in case:

Line 4 – Judas and spiritual suicide through obsession with autonomy
Line 5 – Egyptian / Greek and Nordic images of infinity, a serpent feeding on its own tail
Line 6 – but for a man to presume infinity in himself is vain and self-destructive
Line 7 – Plato’s cave and Gollum’s cave
Line 8 – the fatuity of presuming freedom from God, without Whom there is no self
Line 10 – the Christmas star – Light / everything is of God

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