Facing The Asterisks
This is a Cursory Rhyme about how we, others, and all of reality really, including the physical world, require an asterisk next to our relatively small perceptions and understandings. It’s not a virtue thing, that gets messy these days. It’s about how information works.
Facing the Asterisks
Take that ride on the asterisks — the history, mystery, mostly missed, that thing that happened long ago, and bring to us what didn’t glow. The stage too short and shallow there; the story clipped, lost to the air. Please bring it back and sit us down and tell us about those things you found that didn’t make it in the show that help and you know we should know. But…
It’s not that we’ll know everything;
if we’d talk and talk like cicadas sing,
there’s still too much and so much more.
Like people, there’s no magic door
to walk inside and see it all,
to grasp, unhide, some crystal ball
or absorb and “know” the soul I see;
I won’t find “you” –I question “me”,
but I want to know, I want to show
just what I can before I go.
I wish we knew beyond ticks’ ticks. . .
But let’s face and embrace
the asterisks.
© Tim Storey 12/24/19
For generations now, this would likely be interpreted as a plea to be nonjudgmental, or to increase one’s education, to be open-minded, and whatever other clichés. This isn’t about that. After a few more of us read it I’ll know how to explain what it’s about. Someone might give that better than me.
I don’t mean to be cynical about any of those clichés. They’re just not enough. Even they need asterisks next to them, although it gets tricky to cast complexity on trite expressions and sentiments. But we need to embrace that trickiness and a lot more. We can handle it and we need to, especially now, for the sake of our own peaceful flourishing and that of others.
We probably also need to accept a lot of blanks we can’t really fill in and shouldn’t guess at, regardless of our innate tendencies as humans to do just that.
OK, that wasn’t great, but it’s hopefully better than no explanation at all. This is about peace and understanding things, but it’s not kum ba yah — and it’s not dark, either. When I wrote it, I was feeling very cheerful, so. . . it’s cheerful.
It’s maybe more meaningful though if you read it slowly and not cheerfully, haha. Here are a couple of word explanations: glow=attention getting. Ticks’ ticks=what makes something tick, which is another thing ticking really. I like to know how things work/tick, and it’s usually some other ticking. But how far does that go, and who’s gonna take the time to find out, and does it matter? It depends…
