An Angel's hidden within me.
I've studied every thought, mood, sense.
No, there is no evidence.
But something keeps eluding me,
Like fragrances from memory:
The scent of sacramental wine
And smells of yellowed scrolls. I know
An angel's hidden within me.
"The shift toward the red", the astronomer said, "reveals that space at every place we look expands. It's empty. Empty space is all the tallest telescopes can see. Oh, here and there's a galaxy, but each recedes predictably. There's nothing mysterious, nothing free; no hint of any divinity. Just cosmic dust spreading relentlessly through vast, black space."
An angel's found within me.
It lies inside a speck of light;
Relies on me. Day and night
It drifts and waits.
But I don’t know
The nourishment to make it grow.
I look for signs. What does it need?
How do I feed an angel,
The angel found within me?
"Inside the head", the biologist said, "are ten billion cells and nothing else. We study the brain thoroghly with electrodes and x-ray microscopes. Sorry to disappoint your hopes, but there's nothing mysterious, nothing free. A splendid machine is all we see, run on electrical energy. It's machine that does calculus, writes and sings.(Did you know that robots now do these things? They're based on circuits we found in the brain.)"
Behind the veil of daily life
On the far, dark side
A firefly blinked.
I had my first glimpse through
The glittering scrim.
In that instant the angel minutely grew.
Then I knew that wisdom
Was its bread and wine.
An angel smiles within me.
"God is dead", the philosopher said. "It's all explained historically. The threat of thunder, volcanoes, and death gave rise to myth. By well-known sociological laws, the myths become the essential cause of creation of God. Belief and worship then arise, and persist. All based on myth. With radical change in the myth, god dies. This change, of course, our science supplies. The death was predicted; there's no surprise. (I can explain it again, if you like, with slides.)"
The angel says,
"It's true, the ancient God is dead.
But as He lay there, as He bled,
He saw the endless years ahead,
Saw empty centuries stretched ahead.
Saw countless Thebes and Babylons.
He gestured, whispered that his will,
Long untouched, should be unrolled.
HE took a pen and mended then
His will; He scrawled a codicil.
To each of you He there bequeathed
A speck, a grain, an angel seed."
"The universe is dead and bare". The scholar justifies despair. An angel winks within me...
PS - This poem is taken from the book - "The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga: Path to Mature Happiness, By Mervine Levin"
I've studied every thought, mood, sense.
No, there is no evidence.
But something keeps eluding me,
Like fragrances from memory:
The scent of sacramental wine
And smells of yellowed scrolls. I know
An angel's hidden within me.
"The shift toward the red", the astronomer said, "reveals that space at every place we look expands. It's empty. Empty space is all the tallest telescopes can see. Oh, here and there's a galaxy, but each recedes predictably. There's nothing mysterious, nothing free; no hint of any divinity. Just cosmic dust spreading relentlessly through vast, black space."
An angel's found within me.
It lies inside a speck of light;
Relies on me. Day and night
It drifts and waits.
But I don’t know
The nourishment to make it grow.
I look for signs. What does it need?
How do I feed an angel,
The angel found within me?
"Inside the head", the biologist said, "are ten billion cells and nothing else. We study the brain thoroghly with electrodes and x-ray microscopes. Sorry to disappoint your hopes, but there's nothing mysterious, nothing free. A splendid machine is all we see, run on electrical energy. It's machine that does calculus, writes and sings.(Did you know that robots now do these things? They're based on circuits we found in the brain.)"
Behind the veil of daily life
On the far, dark side
A firefly blinked.
I had my first glimpse through
The glittering scrim.
In that instant the angel minutely grew.
Then I knew that wisdom
Was its bread and wine.
An angel smiles within me.
"God is dead", the philosopher said. "It's all explained historically. The threat of thunder, volcanoes, and death gave rise to myth. By well-known sociological laws, the myths become the essential cause of creation of God. Belief and worship then arise, and persist. All based on myth. With radical change in the myth, god dies. This change, of course, our science supplies. The death was predicted; there's no surprise. (I can explain it again, if you like, with slides.)"
The angel says,
"It's true, the ancient God is dead.
But as He lay there, as He bled,
He saw the endless years ahead,
Saw empty centuries stretched ahead.
Saw countless Thebes and Babylons.
He gestured, whispered that his will,
Long untouched, should be unrolled.
HE took a pen and mended then
His will; He scrawled a codicil.
To each of you He there bequeathed
A speck, a grain, an angel seed."
"The universe is dead and bare". The scholar justifies despair. An angel winks within me...
PS - This poem is taken from the book - "The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga: Path to Mature Happiness, By Mervine Levin"
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