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I've been corresponding with Steve Ellis, one of the most interesting poets writing in the States (there's been nothing like his recent book, _The Long and Short of It_, since Jack Clarke's sonnets), and I thought I'd pass along his below ruminations about asteroids and other cosmic matters. With his permission. Kent >From: "Stephen Ellis" <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth >Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 23:48:07 > >Kent, >No energy in "cosmic time" can be transitory; "cosmic time" is equally >transitory, so as energy seems to transpire "into" it, you have, in >addition to the obviously temporal "lifetime", the element of proportion, >whose facts of relation are a measure, ie., "mental", in other words, >having design, which, as it may include its own demise, will never be any >the wiser for having experienced it, if it in fact ever does. In this, the >largest sentient field available - knowing that one's "knowing" - has yet >to rise to the level of the visible, although an earth-shattering comet or >asteroid would certainly be a prime example of that exact circumstance. >Perhaps it would be possible to construct one, and if so, the interesting >question would have then to do with what differentiates the destructive >capacity of the man-made item from what otherwise the naturalist may think >of as a random sampling of nature's capacity to "do" likewise. Either way, >I say we've little to worry about; when the world ends, we'll all be there. > Period. Like, finally. As if we'd been waiting all this time for the >something we'd thought the whole time too large to conceive, manifesting >wordlessly right down our throats. I'm presuming all world-ending natural >disasters simply rise up out of our (collective?) past, whether personal, >geologic or cosmic hardly matters. The alphabets of our poems will be >found scattered after the fact, throughout the forms broken by the endless >encounters with the very same sentimental logic that permits me to >speculate in this way, as Gurdjieff designated, "like a pianola." Shake >your fanny. >x >Steve > > > > > >>From: kent johnson <[log in to unmask]> >>Reply-To: kent johnson <[log in to unmask]> >>To: [log in to unmask] >>Subject: Re: asteroid to hit earth >>Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 17:08:24 -0600 >> >>Robert Kelly said: >> >>>So we have not the artifact of the poem, but the (fifty years ago Olson >>>called it) transfer of energy, the gift of transform/ing, over to the >>>reader. >> >>This I agree with completely. But what's numbing isn't individual death, >>one >>at a time, which the transfer of energy outlives, or perhaps feeds from-- >>it's the idea that this energy is, in cosmic time, merely transitory. And >>once it's gone it is simply as if it never was. >> >>The Buddhist teaching of impermanence is one thing: Things arise and fall >>away, yet always within an encompassing sentient field (traditional >>Buddhist >>teachings, so far as I know, don't contemplate the termination of the >>world); but the coming asteroid/comet wipes out all sentience (though >>there >>may be a few smaller impacts causing only partial extinctions before the >>Big >>One-- something like Shoemaker-Levy-- hits). >> >>Of course, if there is life seeded here and there throughout the universe, >>maybe this is no big deal. Or if Henry's fingernail-paring God exists, >>maybe >>no big deal either. >> >>But this issue seems to go beyond your typical existential awareness of >>mortality. If the poem has some kind of eternity to it, I can bear it, I >>think. But not that the poem as good as *never existed*. >> >>Well, as Ramon, my astonishingly handsome Honduran friend in the 1980 >>Nicaraguan Literacy Campaign would say (soon to die in a botched commando >>bank robbery-operation in Tegucigalpa): "My dear yanqui, that's life in >>the >>tropics." >>_____________________________________________________________________________________ >>Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : >>http://explorer.msn.com > _____________________________________________________________________________________ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com