End of August

For a while, I was having trouble at work. Small mistakes accumulated. Things I ordinarily knew how to do acquired the peculiar difficulty of a foreign language. Stress magnified everything, and the medication I was taking seemed to complicate matters further. I was struggling in vain to find the right chemical arrangement for a mind increasingly difficult to inhabit.

Eventually, I had what might politely be called a psychological break. There was no single dramatic moment, only the gradual sensation of becoming estranged from my own competence, my own routines, even from the person I had expected to remain throughout the ordeal. Work became frightening. Ordinary failures assumed the proportions of omens. I was exhausted, ashamed, and increasingly unable to distinguish the immediate problem from everything I imagined it meant.

I have since recovered. At least somewhat.

The circumstances have improved. I have found a little more stability, a little more distance from the wreckage, and some sense that a bad season need not become a permanent geography.

So I am going to try again.

Chord of the Flower Calling

In the night, a string I hear,
A whisper faint, yet always near.
It winds the mind with tone so low,
Sonic where reason cannot go.
The bloom it speaks of, petals black,
A flower's song that calls me back.

It draws me to the edge of thought,
Where sense and sanity are fraught.
I listen close, yet dread to know
The secrets whispered soft and slow.
For in that tune, a terror deep,
A path where shadows ever creep.

It sings of skies, forever dark,
Of fears that leave their haunting mark.
The melody, both sweet and grim,
A hymn that pulls me to the rim.
I fear the truth its voice may bring,
Yet still, I feel the urge to cling.

Everything Rolls Downward Again

In the Sisyphean cycle of the boulder’s ascent and its inevitable fall, we observe the very essence of human endeavor: an endless pursuit of dreams as fleeting as the morning mist. Such is the nature of our ambition, forever reaching towards ideals that slip through our fingers like wisps of vapor.

The End

Thinking a lot about ending things. 

Words ring hollow. 

The wind whistles through the reeds. The tide pulls back, leaving only salt and stones.

Wonder and Inquiry

Science, too, partakes of wonder. A microscope reveals ciliary forests; equations shimmer with austere elegance; laboratory benches gleam beneath antiseptic light. Inquiry binds humility to audacity.

The Problem of Mental Causation

Thought moves the hand, or the hand moves thought?
Each nerve obeys a hidden, wordless throne.
Mind and body wrestle, endlessly caught.

What first ignites the deed that reason sought?
The pulse arrives before its cause is known.
Thought moves the hand, or the hand moves thought?

I name the will, yet every name is bought
by older laws beneath the weathered stone.
Mind and body wrestle, endlessly caught.

Some silent engine turns what cannot halt,
its gears concealed beneath the flesh alone.
Thought moves the hand, or the hand moves thought?

Each choice emerges from a shadowed vault,
a harvest sown by seeds we never own.
Mind and body wrestle, endlessly caught.

If freedom speaks, its voice is faint with doubt;
I hear its echo, never hear its tone.
Thought moves the hand, or the hand moves thought?
Mind and body wrestle, endlessly caught.

Carrying On

There are seasons when existence acquires the texture of attrition. Dawn arrives with the ceremonial inevitability of an old decree, and another day presents its ledger of errands, obligations, correspondence, and quiet endurance. Catastrophe seldom announces itself. More often the spirit erodes through infinitesimal abrasions, each one too slight to justify complaint, yet together capable of hollowing the strongest disposition.

Fatigue possesses its own metaphysic. It persuades the mind that every horizon has already been traversed, every consolation rehearsed into impotence. The calendar advances with monastic regularity while inwardly the hours coagulate into something almost geological. Hope begins to resemble an artifact excavated from another civilization, its inscriptions admired yet no longer decipherable.

Then there is Gus.

Thank God for Gus.

Watching him graze, bask, or inspect some inconsequential corner of the room with sacerdotal concentration restores a measure of proportion. He remains gloriously indifferent to ambition, prestige, and the feverish arithmetic by which adulthood so often appraises itself. His existence unfolds according to older ordinances, closer to stone than circuitry, closer to sunlight than schedules.

Perhaps perseverance has always resembled this. Less a triumphant ascent than a patient continuation. Less spectacle than recurrence. One more morning. One more breath. One more small creature lifting his weathered head toward the warmth.

The world retains its severity. My own weariness persists with familiar fidelity. Yet somewhere nearby a tortoise ambles through a shaft of afternoon light as though eternity has granted him abundant time, and for several quiet moments I discover that I can continue at his pace.