Archives
November 2016 -- Hemolymph Moon
October 2016 -- Vortex
September 2016 -- Do You?
August 2016 -- Sailing
July 2016 -- Mulberries
June 2016 -- Off Tucker Point
May 2016 -- Unforgettable
April 2016 -- At Night She Cries
December 2016
The rhythm of rain on the skylight ushers in another month. It is December. Here in the United States this is the “Holiday Season,” a period of about five weeks whose bookends are Thanksgiving (celebrated since 1863 on the fourth Thursday of November) and New Year’s Day. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s events some or all of us celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Bodhi Day, St. Stephan’s Day, St. Nickolas Day, Kwanzaa, Festivus, FSMas, the Day of the Virgin Guadalupe, and the Feast of the Immaculate Conception among other holidays. This year Mawlid is also celebrated in December. Some of these days and dates are of ancient origin, tied to religious traditions. Some are agreed mythologies of our national heritage; others are recent inventions, aimed with varying degrees of seriousness at some aspect of our multicultural and sometimes baffling population that is, at its heart, all the same. In that spirit, I offer a grand Unifying Theory to all those who celebrate humanity in its many traditions this Holiday Season: Our December Poem of the Month, The Creation.
The Creation
We are, each and all,
But a forgotten science project,
Grown from a bowl of primordial soup
Gone missing on the bottom shelf,
Behind the mayo in God's refrigerator.
The sun is a 15-watt bulb on a cosmic scale,
Day and night regulated by the opening of the door
As God reaches for another beer.
Under the urging of this light
We have evolved, twisted, morphed and differentiated
Into shapes varied and mysterious
Yet somehow the same.
We have developed consciousness and self-awareness,
But not understanding.
We believe we have free will
But in truth have none at all.
We are but an ongoing chemical reaction,
Conforming to the laws of nature,
Elemental and complex,
Fractals dancing in a quantum state.
So forgive me as I fall in love.
It is fated by the near occasion of you,
An inviolable separation,
A touch of self-deception,
Some hormones spiced with pheromones,
Stirred by the chorus of a thousand memories.
As it was in the beginning,
Is now and ever shall be,
World without end,
Let it begin.
L. Alloway/2016
Poem of the Month
Ancient Eagle Press
Where Old Fliers Come to Roost
Each month Ancient Eagle Press offers a poem appropriate to the season or the mood of our editorial staff. Poems may be new or drawn from existing AEP editions.