Tightrope Wonder, Discarding, After Backpacking

Tightrope Wonder

Precarious life,
To be present here
In this moment
Between birth and death;
Not unknown skyrocketing futures
Or dead-bogged pasts;
More difficult than the highest trapeze
Artist—our brief human
Awareness,
The poised tightrope balance
Of this present
Moment

--


Discarding

On the way to the town dump
Our junk in the back jostles in the turn.
Dark blue clouds curtain rain down.

I pull onto the miry dirt road
Past tall leaning one-story screens
Where many dark birds and wrens perch

But launch to flight as I pass and reverse.
Backing up my loaded van to trash heaps,
I get out and step through thick hogged mud,

Throw out our old broken stand and chairs,
A rusted bike, worn shirts and old ‘genes,’
Failed hopes and my grouchy frustration;

Yes, and my bulging head off-tilted
With church dogma, loads of heavy tenet,
And too many years of clouded regret.

Driving home—so empty and satisfied.

--


After backpacking

Yosemite
Half Dome
Granite monolith eoned in time
Glaciated but not destroyed
Majestic time lord
But unaware of anything--
Ever mattered

daniel
half done
fragile being decaded in years
ruined and soon inert
temporary time slave
but conscious of the Ultimate--
soon matterless

why?

--


In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

1st published in Tipton Poetry Journal
and the poetry book, Dark Energy

MORAL REALISM: Lying, Stealing, Fornicating, Abusing, Raping, Killing are ALWAYS WRONG!

The end never justifies the means.

To live for MORAL REALISM is to always Seek and Do the Good, the True, the Just.

HOWEVER, then what is a human individual (or government of humans) to do in a CRISIS WHEN faced with only 2 alternative choices and actions and both of them are immoral and unjust?

1. We ought, always, to check, again, for MORE possible choices than the only 2 morally wrong actions! Avoid that EITHER/OR fallacy.

2. IF we humans can’t seem to find a third way to deal with the moral crisis and, thus, feel God has let us down, we ought to reject such a “feeling” as wrong. God is the GOOD. Instead, we ought to, despite our honorable effort, realize we have failed morally whichever moral wrong we do.

3. And, for the future, we ought to spend far more time and effort in figuring out new ways to solve moral conundrums.

4. For instance, I lived and worked in Palestine-Israel where daily (and for hundreds of years in the past), devout religious people--Jews, Muslims, and Christians—continue to make immoral choices based upon the end justifies the means.

Americans (and Europeans and Asians, etc.) do this all the time such as when Americans choose support Trump because they oppose Biden because the latter supports trans, abortion-on-demand, etc.

And we Americans have repeatedly bombed civilians including many thousands of children, because we were certain otherwise worse would happen to us and our soldiers.

Many conscientious religious people even support euthanasia, because we say otherwise, we will be causing terrible suffering,
and we should give healthy teens hormone blockers and distorting surgery because otherwise they will commit suicide,
And we should...
endless actual historical actions justified. A wrong on our part never makes a right.

4. IF I lived when faced with Islamic State or other horrific evil and I fail to find the true good action, I might choose to do one of the wrongs.

HOWEVER, my lie, theft, abuse, etc. would still be wrong.



In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox