Category: PHILOSOPHY POLITICS POEMS

Life is not merely puzzling.

It is beyond puzzling.

It is certainly more than a puzzle.

One can only wish it was just a puzzle.

Life is more like a scroll,

yet more than a scroll.

Like an endless scroll,

with the “now” of our lives,

laid out flat between the rolls.

The scrolls of our lives,

are entangled with—

—-complicated by—

—and supported from,

the scrolls of others in our lives

Trapped,

sometimes in the rolls,

we wither,

cryptic pieces spilling out on the other side,

waiting to be sorted.

Our past, rolls-up behind us,

whether the pieces fit or not.

Life scrolls,

as a river flows,

when the pieces fit a lot.

The rolled up pieces of our past,

like cast away carpet,

are needed less than we fear.

So give away the pieces that you can,

making room for more.

Any piece that we withhold,

and keep as if our own,

might be the one,

for which someone longs.

We can never know,

how pieces given away,

can be useful to the puzzle,

of someone else.

Can you imagine if,

for want of just one piece,

a person didn’t win,

the Nobel Prize for puzzles?

Or for Medicine?

Seems like such a heavy price.

What if you take that one piece—

—with you when you go?

Will you have enough time—

—to give them all away?

By Charles Buell

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There is a Red Boat that sees the White Mountain.

There is a White Mountain that sees the Red Boat.

There is a Small Child with a Lunch Box that sees the Red Boat that sees the White Mountain.

There is a White Mountain that sees the Red Boat that sees the Small Child with the Lunch Box.

There is a Blue Sky that sees the White Mountain that sees the Red Boat that sees the Small Child with the Lunch Box.

There is a Small Child with a Lunch Box that sees them all—-and the things in between—-even the things in the Lunch Box.

By Charles Buell

A Poem for Molly and Rohan and Michael

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Here I am.

Anything I know

about the past,

is either based on hearsay

or memory.

Given the excruciating inadequacy of memory,

it is hard to conclude that anything remembered actually happened

or happened exactly as remembered.

Given the disappointing inadequacy of hearsay,

knowing that people will both lie and tell you the truth,

it is hard to conclude

that what we have heard about ourselves

is entirely accurate

or happened the way told.

Concluding that the past does not exist

is not hard to imagine.

Imagining that the past never existed,

while more difficult,

is for all intents and purposes equally true.

We are faced

with the reality of the now.

Concluding that the future does not exist

is not hard to imagine.

Imaging that the future will never exist,

while more difficult,

is for all intents and purposes equally true.

In time,

when we are somewhere other than where we are now,

this present time will also cease to exist,

and our memory of it,

will alter its truth as well.

Being faced with

“now”

we serve ourselves best

if we

be here now.

While I never was,

I always am.

By Charles Buell

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