“The Grapes”
The grapes hang withered, the harvest
Long since gathered; what remains
Retains the trenchant memory stains
From yet another season, the weathered test
Of futures peopled with a need, steeples
Rising from the premises of the past
And doting on the future that will not last
Beyond a nightly glass of wine. No sequel
To a dream but sanctioned roots suspended
In the act of pruning; horizons in the line
Of distant vision topple hopes distended
From disuse and inadvertently atrophied; wasted
Spirits in the advertent death of taste.
The pupil clouds and nostrils to the offended
Ear are blocked in musks of sweeter youth
That knows no limit. The feet must surely slip on smooth
And smoother promises of liquids, fickle frosts and pools,
Refractions of an oily surface to rival molecules
On a glass as if nuances of insight, some private means to see
Beyond and through but not within the self. Counterfeits
And likenesses ignore both dissembling and the stuff of age
Accepts no protocol beyond the glory of the bellows to a furnace.
These young ones, tender seedlings, virile saplings
Congregate in spacious places fashioned in the hapless
Moment, centred near but not within intention with nothing purchased
Being no better than what they are or might be and what they are is gone,
As meretricious vapours of a neon evening’s whim rehearsed at evensong.
Once 
This one really Sings!!
I love, “…horizons in the line
Of distant vision topple hopes…”
I had to look up “advertent” 🙂
I am still reading Notes from An Alien and taking notes as I go; thank God I have a computer to make the print huge so that I can read it. As soon as I finish it, I will send the notes I’m taking to you, whenever that is. I am not at all a speed reader, a fact that came as a relief to my students all those years. I always gave everyone plenty of time to read whatever I assigned. Naturally, many of them still put off reading until the last minute, but at least they had the time I might have needed myself had I had to read whatever I asked them to read.
Yes, “advertent” is a word after all. I looked it up again myself and there it was! I don’t think I have ever heard anyone use the word, actually. Then again, I wasn’t aware of the particular or peculiar significance of the word “plasma” until now. I have looked it up and apparently there are those that feel the “plasma theory” holds water and a majority who do not. It’s an intriguing idea to me, but I am not at all sure why.
Again, the best to you during these twelve days…
John
Happy, Happy Ridvan 🙂
So looking forward to whatever notes you send me about Notes…
To me, the theories of Plasma Cosmology are valid because their predictive power is much greater than mainstream astrophysics.
They appeal to my sense of cosmic aesthetics because they postulate a Universe full of electricity and magnetism; galaxies, stars, and planets bound into a tapestry of Plasma Love 🙂
In the book, I took creative license with the connection between my knowledge of Plasma Cosmology and its application to the realm of Communication………
Alexander: Alláh-u-Abhá!
To anyone other than a Bahá’í, what comment I have to make has to be considered ridiculous and entirely lacking in academic veracity and even sound judgment. However, we are both Bahá’í s and both of us know full well that human learning is a relative thing, a fluid institution within the general bailiwick of both human experience in the collective sense as well as the subjective personal reality of any one of its constituent parts. The Supreme Concourse would know exactly to what I am referring here.
To make a long story short, I have a “hunch” or rather I suspect that your use of whatever the terms of Plasma Cosmology as it exists so far today is correct notwithstanding the details. I use that verb, suspect, advisedly and even cautiously when I am certain, privately, that something is true but have no way of proving it either from Scripture or from any accepted academic source. At this point in the history of our planet, given all that we know we do not know and all that we discover concerning whatever it is we do know, anyone’s “guess” is at least on the surface as good as anyone else’s prognosis. Even in my short lifetime here, I can easily remember when my science teachers in junior high school and senior high school declared, definitively little more in the way of certain discovery of the cosmos as fact than that all those stars, planets, asteroids, comets, or what-have-you we perceive are nothing more than what is found within our own solar system with the sun being the centre of it all and not the earth [an improvement at least since Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and the gang came up with the astounding thought that Ptolemy, and, for that matter, the Church, was wrong in its assumptions of exactly the opposite conclusion.] In these last forty-five years, of course we now know that there are more stars alone [and never mind their satellites] by far than the number of grains of sand on our planet. What holds it all together, of course, is entering a critical period of discovery and debate that is so loud and obnoxious that what discoveries and breakthroughs do occur seem to happen by accident or, at the very least, when no one happens to be looking such that whomever it may be who discovers something new [and not entirely beyond what could be called “under the sun”] seems to pop up out of nowhere and gets the job done because someone forgot to beat the hell out of him before the magic moment of inspiration.
I do not comprehend the details of what I have read concerning “Plasma Cosmology” but I suspect it holds water {no pun intended] and, along with other aspects of an ever-expanding knowledge and experience of our universe [and possibly other universes] will in time reap the rewards of the natural urge to investigate and open ourselves to discoveries entirely in keeping with the inspiration cooperation for the same from the Supreme Concourse. “O God, my God! Praise be unto Thee for kindling the fire of divine love in the Holy Tree on the summit of the loftiest mount; that Tree which is ‘neither of the East nor of the West, ‘that fire which blazed out till the flame of it soared upward to the Concourse on high, and from it those realities caught the light of guidance, and cried out: ‘Verily have we perceived a fire on the slope of Mount Sinai.’” ―’Abdu’l-Bahá, Baha’i Prayers, p. 199-200
In short, then, at this point in the evolution of thought, what, I wonder, did not begin with “poetic license?” Apparently, Hamlet was absolutely spot on when he declared to Horatio that there are “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” and it is certainly true of the philosophies of the present world.
John
Well…
Very apposite quote from ‘Abdu’l-Baha…
Since I think the theory of Plasma Cosmology, that the Universe is “held together” by magnetism and Powered by electricity (somewhat confirmed by ‘Abdu’l-Baha) is true, and that the Earth is a charged body that lives within the electromagnetic atmosphere of the Sun (and the Sun within in the galaxy, etc., etc., etc.) and that even our bodies are charged in various ways through nerves and neurons and even humble cell walls, I thought it plausible that one day we might discover (or fictional aliens may reveal) that various forms of communication can be moderated by this plasma womb we live within 🙂
“When you assemble, you must reflect the lights of the heavenly Kingdom. Let your hearts be as mirrors in which the radiance of the Sun of Reality is visible. Each bosom must be a telegraph station — one terminus of the wire attached to the soul, the other fixed in the Supreme Concourse — so that inspiration may descend from the Kingdom of Abha and questions of reality be discussed. Then opinions will coincide with truth; day by day there will be progression, and the meetings will become more radiant and spiritual. This attainment is conditioned upon unity and agreement. The more perfect the love and agreement, the more the divine confirmations and assistance of the Blessed Perfection will descend. May this prove to be a divine meeting, and may boundless bestowals come down upon you. Strive with all your hearts and with the very power of life that unity and love may continually increase. In discussions look toward the reality without being self-opinionated. Let no one assert and insist upon his own mere opinion; nay, rather, let each investigate reality with the greatest love and fellowship. Consult upon every matter, and when one presents the point of view of reality itself, that shall be acceptable to all. Then will spiritual unity increase among you, individual illumination will be greater, happiness will be more abundant, and you will draw nearer and nearer to the Kingdom of God.” –Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 183
It is just so, what you perceive and what I have perceived as “gut feelings” or ideas we suspect are true will one day blossom at the point at which minds and hearts that are in accord and reflecting the truth from above will address the details, the “nuts and bolts” of realities that are but dreams and hopes at present for lack of a critical mass of adherents; in that time, when once we are worthy of the decent of truth and the ascent of our own approbation of that same truth, what was regarded as mysterious and even fiction will emerge as beacons of truth. I remember the day before the first moon shot was made; adults were telling me that they would never make it to the moon because God never intended that we get there. Yes, well, I had no reason to ask these same people what they thought the day after that first landing on the moon. Oddly, at the moment, I cannot even remember their names.
🙂