Page 24 - the NOISE December 2013

Let me recaLL by Jason casella
jasoncassella@yahoo.com
There is humility in being aware
of the sacrifices for six million years
our ancestors made for our leisure,
of knowing the first evidence
of purposeful fire is a million years old, descendants living 200 miles up in space, laboring deep inside our oceans,
almost ending for one another daily.
There is humility tracing our ancestors
not only to the start of life on this planet,
but according to the first law of thermal dynamics to the beginning of time, as far as we can see, spark of meaning and plasma into hydrogen clustering into the stars
whose deaths will birth us.
There’s a humility in delimiting
the healthy ego from the subjective, opening sentience to the great mystery, expanding soulfulness and the test
of compassion towards other species, recognizing imaginings as necessary, being content understanding that ideas are born simultaneously
and the striving for first
extends the collective cultural mind.
It’s ok to be cool.
Let me experience my humility. Let me recall that most likely
I am one of millions of species wondering alone at itself presently in the universe.
In every moment of creosote after rain, conversations quiet as animal breath, self-deception and the anguish of Abraham, the contradictions of a self itself
and its need for definition,
for every breeze that whispers,
every word unsaid that huffs into existence
in the inner-dialogue of the mind’s
reflex-arc of intention,
for every honest emotion in the animal acts draped with human reason,
there is a magnificent humility in being
such a small piece of the universe aware of itself.
Let me recall this gift, at times unbearable, that gives rise to music we strain to hear, bouncing back of the crags of others, sleight-of-hand picking off the mites,
as we lick the sleep from each other’s eyes.
photo by Danielle Vorves
24 • DECEMBER 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us