Thursday, October 11, 2018

Fall Reflection: Connection



We are brimming with bonds.
Physiologic connections constitute our being. 
Telescopes, microscopes stared into darkness
And found no match to our complexity
Mind-boggling mesh of synapses, receptors
The id, ego, super-ego
Explanations unsettling in their inadequacy
Mapped in colorful complexity
Still so far beyond our ken. 

Know thyself.
The most ancient phrase.
The most wise.
Know thyself.
What ties you together?

Wives, husbands, mommies, daddies,
First-order bonds, identities
Messy words like love
Conceal as much as reveal.
We pretend to understand each other--
Till confronted by how we have not. 
How distorted our pictures of others
Our gaze fixed on ourselves.
What can refocus, what can refine?
Let thyself be humbled!
Tear that too-strong tie.

Charlatans predate primate relations
Tangle ties meant for tribes
Salesmen's spiderwebs stick 
Stripping the seams of society.
So we must build walls,
We must skepticize,
We must ever say, 
Put me on your no-call list.
Blessed it must not be, 
The tie that binds.

Triggers make connections, but destroy.
Knots can be tangled or clean.
Glue defaces as well as binds
Tape turns on itself.
How fraught, our connections, how fragile
What delicate touch we need with the other
What science, skill, experience, what sensibilities
What an art is love.

Love--
Creaturely, embodied, yet divine
For creatures, others, and the divine.
Our utmost challenge:
Untangle, retie that knot
So blessed can be the tie that binds.


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