The Fields of Elysium

This road to Elysium.
And now the Fields, spring and light, happiness and song.
Sip from the River Lethe, and obtain oblivion of the former life.
Oblivion.

Ah peace, sweet peace, most lovely lapsing of this my soul into the plasm of peace, the core of nothingness.
(D. H. Lawrence)

The fields of youth are Elysian. The fields of great age are not, except when in retrospect the aged return to earlyhood with regrets or satisfaction.

San Paku I*

Step back, and see what you have painted here.
Not that inflamed by ego's appetites.
The one completely satisfying sphere
of extra-individual delights,
beyond the harmony in choirs of friends,
beyond the lyric of self-expression's modes,
beyond the measured beat of nature's trends,
beyond a pre-death faith in post-death's roads,
remains the trust that human life rolls on
through san paku beyond the end of I.
Roll on, roll on, for I, oblivion,
but works of I pass on through newborn eyes.
Make leaps to higher plains of gentle ways.
Bequeath to not-Is peace in happy days.

*San Paku is a Japanese descriptive phrase for the certain look that appears in the eyes of one on the threshold of death. Life has been drained to a critically low level.

P.C. Love

"I want and need you now."
"But wait," she said.
"If want's on top, should need lie still below?"
"You've stifled want. Desire by ethic led,
I'll tell you straight, the plinth for love to grow.
The core of self is need that wakens wants.
The pleasure principle, you know, is strong,
but, far from need, this want is mere response.
It always seems to feel right, but it's wrong.
The need, the heart of love, is reached through touch,
the warming, healing rub of textured feel,
and through your speech, 'I love you very much.'
The trials of talk and touch are love's ordeal.
To reach the core, take risk, disclose, and trust.
You fear to fail? You'll never fail to fear the more."

© 1996 John F. Deethardt II

Alice

Deep inside our understated pact,
the fine print veils the frequent tender terms
in telling moves that only we can read.
Yet I regret my trust in silent acts.

Dear M and J:
On your fiftieth anniversary, we wish you the best. In the sonnet that follows, we compare how a fifty years together reiterates an exercise routine.

Sonnet to a Rhyming Couplet

(1) The clothes dispose
The thought of pains and gains to come dictates
a style of dress well tailored to the chase.

(2) The warm-up
The stretch, the bend of first romances elevates
the blood-rush for the body's first embrace

(3) The regimen
of repetitious sets of work and strain.
A moment's rest and back to work once more.

(4) The cool down
One day. we cool, and leave the long campaign,
return to things we tended to ignore.

(5)The shower
We rediscover standing still to soak
in satisfactions of a healthy heart.

(6) The breakfast
A sigh while sitting with one's gentlefolk
contains the glow that says you cannot part.

(7) The rhyming couplet at the end
A toast to M and J, our friends of old!
With lifelong exercise they've grabbed the gold.

© 1995 John F. Deethardt II

Last updated on January 26, 2006