Tuesday, September 08, 2009

After great pain/ Preamble/ Edelen


(P1) Poetical

Emily Dickinson

After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

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(P2) Political

Healthcare For All

Preamble to the United States Constitution

We the People of the United States,
in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare, and
secure the Blessings of Liberty
to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish
this Constitution
for the United States of America.

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(P3) Philosophical

Reply From William Edelen

My feeling about death is...as they say in Taoism and Zen...there is nothing to fear...at all...it is just a perfectly natural part of the cycles of nature...birth growth and death...everything is a part of that process...even the galaxies...the flowers of a rainy spring...and the grasses of a showery summer...are good...and beautiful...and sufficient even tho they will vanish..."life" so called...is only a brief interlude between two mysteries.which are yet ONE..birth and death are just perfectly natural part of the rhythms of nature...it is ONLY the people of the "book"...the bible...Islam and Judaism and Christianity that have made it a fearful event...so...my friend...I hope this helps a little...with love...Bill

Go here to William Edelen's Website


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6 comments:

Mike Matthews said...

When you said your feelings were exploding--for your Dad-- that tells it all...I think you can't know dying and death until it visits. I like what Bill said about it being something quite natural. But I really liked the Emily poem concluding with letting go. There was something terrifically cold and inevitable in her poem.

Julie deRossi said...

Dear Ed,

Savor every moment with him. May his final journey be a gentle one - and may there be peace for those he leaves behind.

Blessings,
Julie

M. Baynes said...

Hi Ed,
My heart goes out to you and yor Dad. It is good that you are with him. I will send prayers, angels and love.

Michelle B

Connie said...

Eddie, may this precious time with your father be free of suffering, may there ultimately be peace and warm reflections on days past.

Re the health care situation in the US: As you know, I live in France and benefit from the national health system, which gives me and my husband a sense of security that people of modest means in the US just can't readily have, and for this we are grateful. It worries me that there are people in the U.S. who think we pull the plug on our aged grans, smother handicapped babies and make people wait until it's too late for life-saving procedures. (I survived cancer in France, so I know what I'm talking about, surgeries, 6 months of chemo, etc.) How do they get away with these insults, and furthermore where the heck do they think this "information" is coming from? Every other industrialized western nation offers some level of health care for every resident, Americans are largely charitable and generous people, why is there a problem looking after fellow Americans? The whole tenor of the debate saddens me. But I bet on this blog I'm preaching to the converted! Ennyhoo, just feeling frustrated...

Big hugs from Connie

Ed Coletti said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Katherine Hastings said...

A Man is Told His Father is Dying
                                    for Ed
 
 
A man's father is dying.  Please don't advise him
not to feel -- fear, anger, the whole facing-death-gamut.
No matter what is factual, it doesn't matter much.
 
True, there is nothing for the father to fear --
no heaven or hell better or worse
than what we've created here,
 
but the son
will have to say goodbye,
 
will have to learn how to live
as a fatherless child. 
 
Some say fear is nothing but an acronym:
false evidence appearing real.
Death is also false in some far eastern way.
 
Yet here a man spends his last days with his father,
which is to say his beacon,
 
and no matter how much he knows
he has never gone through this before;
 
there is much that remains unknown
 
One day we wake and ask
Where did you go?
Who am I without you?
 
Eventually, we discover our answer.


by Katherine Hastings