Saturday, April 16, 2005

Transcending

I read the following poem in Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, and for some reason I can’t quite explain, I really like it. I’ve always enjoyed Escher’s art and my current interest in things astronomical means I appreciate the references to galaxies and stars, but somehow it also conveys (to me, anyway) a sense of hope and purpose.


Transcending

Escher got it right.
Men step down and yet rise up,
the hand is drawn by the hand it draws,
and a woman is poised
on her very own shoulders.

Without you and me this universe is simple,
run with the regularity of a prison.
Galaxies spin along stipulated arcs,
stars collapse at the specified hour,
crows u-turn south and monkeys rut on schedule.

But we, whom the cosmos shaped for a billion years
to fit this place, we know it failed.
For we can reshape,
reach an arm through the bars
and, Escher-like, pull ourselves out.

And while whales feeding on mackerel
are confined forever in the sea,
we climb the waves,
look down from the clouds.

From Look Down from Clouds (Marvin Levine, 1997)

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