Maybe Not the Same Experience, Keith Dunlap

awakening, 11x14 oil on boardAwakening, Romona Youngquist, 11 X 14, Oil on Board

 

 

Maybe Not the Same Experience

 

But something happened to me at the same time,
Far away. My radio tuned to the same station
Which broadcast the Gregorian chant.
The medieval polyphony consoled me,
Instructed me as would a passage of religious
Philosophy, after I had learned about the death
Of an old college friend, the news
Delivered in an email from a mutual acquaintance,
The sort who takes unconscious pleasure
From relaying such distressing accidents,
As if the rest of us needed to be taught a lesson,
To have our confidence humbled and our joys delayed.
For you, it was the spirit-destroying daily stress,
Momentarily allayed by the cadent repetition,
Recorded in the echoing cave of a Gothic cathedral,
As if, as you neatly folded sandwiches into plastic bags
For the kids, each endless annoying morning task
Was also a sacred duty. We stopped.
And listened. The music asked
For quiet. And reverential repose.

_______________
Keith Dunlap

 

Review by William Fairbrother

I don’t like the title because there are no such things as borders.
Burn me in hell I’m Buddhist.
This is a precious piece of wandering, yet feels real.  We, in our fixity, do not wander.
So this is wonderful, perhaps takes us back.  Simplicity.
“eat differently” – that is really godhood Timeless also…
Ownership of ideas of course you have to back to Vico –
There is a burning element here.
So there is a vice versa
To offer the perverse as an out on a problem is not really subject to examination. 
It makes me think that there is a phenomenological answer.

Great poem, by the way.

 

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