Collected Poems: Purpose, Love, and Loss
I am adrift. What once was order has dissolved into chaos.
What comes next? Dear reader, I haven’t the faintest clue. Yet, within this short collection of poems, I discover a flicker of guidance — a fragile compass, as I stumble through the uncertainty of my days.
Excerpt 64, Toa Te Ching (4th Century, BC)
what is rooted is easy to nourish.
what is recent is easy to correct.
what is brittle is easy to break.
what is small is easy to scatter.
prevent trouble before it arises.
put things in order before they exist.
the giant pine tree grows from a tiny sprout.
the journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath your feet.
rushing into action, you fail.
trying to grasp things, you lose them.
forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.
therefore the Master takes action by letting things take their course.
she remains as calm at the end as at the beginning.
she has nothing, thus has nothing to lose.
what she desires is non-desire.
what she learns is to unlearn.
she simply reminds people of who they have always been.
she cares about nothing but the Tao.
thus she can care for all things.
A Mother in a Refugee Camp, Chinua Achebe (1930)
no Madonna and Child could touch
her tenderness for a son
she soon would have to forget…
the air was heavy with odours of diarrhoea,
of unwashed children with washed-out ribs
and dried-up bottoms waddling in laboured steps
behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there
had long ceased to care, but not this one:
she held a ghost-smile between her teeth,
and rubbed him down with bare palms.
she took from their bundle of possessions
a broken comb and combed
the rust-coloured hair left on his skull
and then — humming in her eyes — began carefully to part it.
in their former life this was perhaps
a little daily act of no consequence
before his breakfast and school; now she did it
like putting flowers on a tiny grave.
Eternal Love, Daniel Armah Blay (2024)
the passage of time is a strange sensation,
its pace quickens with indifference.
cherished memories of your touch,
that warmth is distant now
yet my being still yearns.
I hold your presence in the focus of my heart,
tenderly searching every nook of my recall
for heavenly feelings of moments passed.
longing to be immersed in your divine spirit,
united as one.
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, Richard Brautigan (1967)
I like to think
(the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if there were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labours
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.