Thursday, April 4, 2013

Innocent Auguries

With poetry, music and literature as well as any of the other so-called "arts" there is a presumption that all that one does is something that will be lasting, despite the modesty, despite the renunciations of pretension. Why perform, why write, why compose if it is not for an audience that is beyond your physical jurisdiction? I find that hypocrisy if one says that it is not. We strive for an audience larger than ourselves, we strive to be heard.

When someone recently questioned me about "why I write?" I was only reminded of my throwback answer, that from the ending of "Shadowlands," the story of C.S. Lewis, and a sad story it is, and that the voiceover says, "we write so that we know that we are not alone."

I guess, in short, that is why I write, and that is why I blog. For the most part of my life, I feel quite alone. I work alone, I think alone, and I am alone in a foreign country, though it was not much different when I was in my native country, I was, for the most part, still alone. So, I write.

Perhaps you are out there. Perhaps you follow some of my words, and maybe, just maybe, you might empathize. I don't know.

One of the most power invocations to seeing if we are alone, however, is William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence," from which I derived the post title for the blog dedicated to my daughter. It reminds us both of the temporality and the vastness of our existence. The dichotomy of the infinitely small with the infinitely sublime that we live each day. We do. Look around. Take stock of every detail of what has come before you and you will be amazed. Take a moment to stare a flower in its face and tell me you are not moved.

But, we revert to complacency, which is truly sad. This universe, this world before us, this moment that we have at our hands is infinite if we let it be, or, it is a mere trifle, a passing, and how sad is that?

The famous opening lines of Blake's "Auguries of Innocence":

To see the World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand,
And Eternity in an Hour...

I dare you to live life as such. I dare myself each day to do so.


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