That poem I promised earlier.
This mathemagical apocalypse
Cries the wrong truth.
The old brain's tired; this cataract of words
May wear it out.
Caught in an eastern ray, a mote of dust
Floats wordlessly before me,
Floats into sunlight from the silent shadow.
Men of vast learning speculated here,
Proved themselves fools.
They sold their minds, they waited for the end
And still they wait.
This toast with English marmalade spread thick
Defies my comprehension;
Dully I sit in sunlight and in shadow
The strange surrealistic images
Confuse the eyes.
Sword tongue, brass feet, and hair as white as wool
And eyes like fire
Have no place here by this chipped coffee mug,
Pot, plates, fork, knives, and napkins
Set here amid the sunlight and the shadow.
Old fiery sage, yours are transcendent truths
About the world,
But I must have one simple earthly truth:
My second son.
Fourteen and tall, he wolfs down scrambled eggs;
I watch, and my world steadies.
He grows in both the sunlight and the shadow.
The old doxologies-what alien mind
Can give such praise?
To him be glory and dominion in
What unseen place?
"That shirt looks good on you; it fits just right,"
I venture; he nods gravely
But glad in his own sunshine streaked with shadow.
Baffled by words too hard, I close the book
And put it by.
What sane man tries to wrestle with such texts?
The sports page calls.
And yet a phrase, to him who loves us, seems
To pull me back. He loves us,
Trapped here between the sunlight and the shadow?
Huge formless thoughts well up, hitting my brain
First, then my hand,
Spilling some coffee. Wide awake at last,
I mop it up.
Tomorrow, or perhaps another day,
I'll play the theologian,
When I've more sunlight and a lot less shadow.
This really touched me.
It obviously meant a lot to him, as it stirred up the same feelings he felt back then by simply reading it aloud.
Cries the wrong truth.
The old brain's tired; this cataract of words
May wear it out.
Caught in an eastern ray, a mote of dust
Floats wordlessly before me,
Floats into sunlight from the silent shadow.
Men of vast learning speculated here,
Proved themselves fools.
They sold their minds, they waited for the end
And still they wait.
This toast with English marmalade spread thick
Defies my comprehension;
Dully I sit in sunlight and in shadow
The strange surrealistic images
Confuse the eyes.
Sword tongue, brass feet, and hair as white as wool
And eyes like fire
Have no place here by this chipped coffee mug,
Pot, plates, fork, knives, and napkins
Set here amid the sunlight and the shadow.
Old fiery sage, yours are transcendent truths
About the world,
But I must have one simple earthly truth:
My second son.
Fourteen and tall, he wolfs down scrambled eggs;
I watch, and my world steadies.
He grows in both the sunlight and the shadow.
The old doxologies-what alien mind
Can give such praise?
To him be glory and dominion in
What unseen place?
"That shirt looks good on you; it fits just right,"
I venture; he nods gravely
But glad in his own sunshine streaked with shadow.
Baffled by words too hard, I close the book
And put it by.
What sane man tries to wrestle with such texts?
The sports page calls.
And yet a phrase, to him who loves us, seems
To pull me back. He loves us,
Trapped here between the sunlight and the shadow?
Huge formless thoughts well up, hitting my brain
First, then my hand,
Spilling some coffee. Wide awake at last,
I mop it up.
Tomorrow, or perhaps another day,
I'll play the theologian,
When I've more sunlight and a lot less shadow.
This really touched me.
It obviously meant a lot to him, as it stirred up the same feelings he felt back then by simply reading it aloud.