Poeta Doctus

What’s Lebendig’

Welcher Lebendige, Sinnbegabte, liebt nicht vor allen Wundererscheiunungen des verbreiteten Raums um ihn, das allerfreuliche Licht—mit seinen Farben, seinen Strahlen und Wogen; seiner milden Allgegenwart, als weckender Tag. / What living person, gifted with any sense, doesn’t love, more than all the wonderful appearances of spread-out space around him, the all-joyful Light—with its colors, beams, waves; its gentle presence, as waking day.—Hymnen an die Nacht, trans. Dick Higgins

Marks in, walking home, looking

in the used book store,

stroking the one friendly, fluffy

cat, intervening in a theological

dispute at the cash quoting

Spinoza in Latin and Daisetz

Suzuki summing up an evening’s

philosophical chit-chat:   “That’s what

I like about metaphysics—nobody

wins!” —stopping by the last

independent English-language bookstore, browsing

the poetry and philosophy, weighing

whether to buy a volume

or two but resolving just

to get the book I

ordered, paying off the dentist

for the new gold crown,

noticing Spring’s first green lush

after two weeks rain now

in intense sun, shaking up

a double martini or two,

commenting cante jondo on Facebook

to buck up a heartbroken

friend, priming a new withering

blog post “our postmetaphysical age”

sending me to Metaphysica Alpha

One:  “the senses are loved

for themselves, especially sight,” reading

Hymnen an die Nacht aloud,

“Du kommst, Geliebte—” as Petra

opens the door, parsing that

first sentence together (…who doesn’t

love over and above appearance

spread out light, its colours,

rays and waves, gently everywhere

like the dawn?), philologizing Lebendige,

“he shewed himself to them

alive”, “Son of the ever-living”,

the senses of Sinn in

Sinnbegabte, allgegenwart, (omnipresent) everywhere.