sis-squish
sis-squish
sis-squish
take a breath,
exhale -- hold it
take a breath,
exhale -- hold it
take a breath
exhale, hold it
the choreography of
echocardiography
laying on left side
as she moves reader-ball
here and there while heart
yawns and tries not to pose
My mother once told me I was cruel because I remembered conversations and things told me.
I know, I know -- quoting bible stories as told probably fits that cruelty.
According to the book of Genesis, after cre-
ating the universe, god created Adam (2: 7). He
(god’s reported gender) forbad Adam from eating
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
(2: 17). After god decided Adam needed a help-
mate, he created Eve (21–2). Gen 3 explains that
a serpent tempted Eve to eat said fruit – rules be
damned. She ate the fruit and gave Adam a bite.
God was not happy. He cursed Eve: she had to
conceive and carry children (16). Adam had to
work the land.
As many of you may know, some religious
individuals try to explain this (and other) sto-
ries away, to claim that they are metaphorical.
Many believers reject these reinterpretations.
Whether metaphorical or not, these spell trouble
for a Christian conception of god.
God punished Adam not for doing ‘wrong’
in any ordinary sense of that term, but for
disobeying him. God told Adam not to eat
said fruit. (He could have told them: ‘don’t
pick your nose while standing on your left
leg’.) But why is disobeying god wrong unless
what Adam did was wrong, independent of the
command? Otherwise, god looks like a mob boss
who expects compliance, no matter what the
command. That does not sound like the actions
of a noble creature.
Then in Gen 6: 11–15, we learn about Noah.
God did not like the way Noah’s neighbours
acted. So, god devised a scheme to save Noah
and punish everyone else. He instructed Noah
to build a boat on which he could carry his fam-
ily and one pair of all animal species. Then the
rain came. Forty days and nights. Non-stop. Any
creature not on the boat died, including all peo-
ple, no matter their age, and all animals – sans
those fortunate enough to be chosen for a boat
ride.
Is that a suitable death for two-year-olds,
mentally challenged twelve-year-olds, or George
and Georgina Giraffe? What would we think of
a human who did this? We would deem him a
‘moral monster’. So we should. We would not
revere him or consider him kind, generous or
loving.
Then there is Job as described in the book
by that name. Job was upright. But Satan (why
did god create Satan?) came to god and bet him
that Job would no longer continue to worship
him if he (Job) lost all he cared for. On a bet
god allowed Job to lose his family, wealth and
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https://doi.org/10.1017/S147717562510078X Published online by Cambridge University PressThink • Vol 24 • No 71 • Autumn 2025
standing. By golly, he was going to show that
devil!
God won the wager. Job never cursed god. But
to what end? So that god could demonstrate that
he was right? What would we say of a human
engaging in such a wager? We would not praise
him.
(-from, Living Without a God, by Hugh LaFollette)
I suppose the biblical author, like Eliot’s Prufrock, would add:
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
So we are left with the scholar’s dilemma -- is it fact, fiction, myth, metaphor, analogically generated stories pointing beyond themselves?
Is “God” a literary device served up to initiate a cultural/political baseline for future capitalization and control?
Or, are we merely screwed by thinking independently and going against commonly held belief?
These days, everything is a wager -- from sporting events to the Strait of Hormuz to tomorrow morning's stock market numbers.
Place your bets, gentlemen and ladies!
And never give a sucker an even break!
It must come upon many. The weariness. The body moving away from itself.
The tiredness of awfulness.
The way the rich and powerful in their dreariness and slovenly discounting of moral behavior model ugliness and disreputable ways.
This is a hard age.
We look to the honorable and the kind for encouragement.
To the dignified and the saintly for example.
Awful.
Hard to hear.
Haunted by ‘Dark Thoughts,’ Louisiana Father Kills 8 Children
Seven of the eight children killed were the shooter’s own. Two other people were gravely wounded. The gunman, who was struggling with mental health problems, died in a confrontation with police. (19apr2016, NYTimes)
Before thought, prayer.
Under the dream, the real.
(*Gaelic: walking without a destination)
If I had my druthers
I’d live in Canada
Nova Scotia, Cape Breton
A side street
In Baddeck
Up from Bras d’Or
Sausage and eggs
Coffee at café
Jetty leading nowhere
As James Joyce wrote
About a pier being
A disappointed bridge
Contemplation is
Omnidirectional attention
The heart longs
For itself
The mind is still
Within itself
An expanse of
Intimacy
Like birdcall
Through drizzle fog
Try not to be annoyed, frustrated, or worried.
In the Ch’an perspective
Wisdom is a state
That is free from attachments,
Free from measurement,
Free from self-reference
And empty of vexation.
--Sheng Yen (1931-2009)
Everything that happens out here is chimera.
All is an impossible, wild, or unattainable dream, fantasy, or illusion.
I know this is so because it is the way things are and the way I am.
There’s no one to blame.
No one to hate.
No one to say “He did it.”
Were we wise we would see this as it is.
Then we’d be able to decide how we’d want to be in the midst of how things are.
What she wanted. What he got.
“When you write my epitaph, you must say I was the loneliest person who ever lived.” (Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell)
He didn’t get to write it. After he died in 1977, she wrote this elegy for him:
In Memoriam: Robert Lowell
I can make out the rigging of a schoonera mile off; I can countthe new cones on the spruce. It is so stillthe pale bay wears a milky skin; the skyno clouds except for one long, carded horse¹s tail.The islands haven't shifted since last summer,even if I like to pretend they have—drifting, in a dreamy sort of way,a little north, a little south, or sidewise—and that they¹re free within the blue frontiers of bay.This month our favorite one is full of flowers:buttercups, red clover, purple vetch,hackweed still burning, daisies pied, eyebright,the fragrant bedstraw's incandescent stars,and more, returned, to paint the meadows with delight.The goldfinches are back, or others like them,and the white-throated sparrow's five-note song,pleading and pleading, brings tears to the eyes.Nature repeats herself, or almost does:repeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise.Years ago, you told me it was here(in 1932?) you first "discovered girls"and learned to sail, and learned to kiss.You had "such fun," you said, that classic summer.("Fun"—it always seemed to leave you at a loss…)You left North Haven, anchored in its rock,afloat in mystic blue…And now—you've leftfor good. You can't derange, or rearrange,your poems again. (But the sparrows can their song.)The words won't change again. Sad friend, you cannot change.(--Poem, North Haven, by Elizabeth Bishop)
Friendships, like words, find their own particular expression.
I don’t know what you mean
I’m saying it feels like
deflation, everything going away
What does that mean
It means I’m losing it
What do you want me to do
Nothing, I’m just saying
Ok, you said it; now what
There’s another cup of coffee
in the pot. It’s yours
Lord help us
Nah, don’t go there
some cars cut it close
not concerned the road walker
might step out into their right
fender, to them we are not suicidal
they don’t want to be bothered
to ease over toward center lines
only the suicidal consider stepping
into speeding fender, that’s not me
the thought never occurs, not at all,
not even once, not less than once, never
For me, it is inactivity.
Too much knowledge leads to overactivity;
Better to calm the mind.
The more you consider, the greater the loss;
Better to unify the mind.
Water dripping ceaselessly
Will fill the four seas.
Specks of dust not wiped away
Will become the five mountains.
—Wang Ming (6th c.)
Drips and dust cover the earth.
Cover me.
These days
At Tuesday evening conversation, a 4th century hymn:
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