CHOOSING CHAOS

CHOOSING CHAOS

What is the difference between/ chaos and order, anyway. / Where would we look/to measure this. The before/or after. Where do those start. --- From “Methodology” by Hannah Stephenson, The Storialist, 11-08-11

Order is articulated chaos, its desire

an old rebellion that recalls the loss

of a streamlined paradise. Nothing

is needed here. Everything is given. 

Then, why walk out of this Garden?

A provident Eden where everything

grew including his wanton dreams,

of having his way: orders be damned. 

How simple things would have been.

Each pebble on the pond had a reason

to be there, each star a constellation

of sunlight, each sun a starter of life. 

How serenely flowers would bloom

on the tip of thorns, or water flow

gently from the cracks of dry rocks,

and ripe fruit fall on open mouths. 

Everything can happen here, nothing

is everything there, a cipher is full.

How benignly would mountains rise

from the sea, and lakes from mudpools. 

Would movement have moved this

conspiracy of stillness and creation?

He could not see this, nor feel the pain

of a yanked rib to make a woman cane. 

A yearning rooted in his belly burned,

a lust for roaming the hidden valleys,

finding struggle with fish and grain

a surprising tug on his arms and loins. 

Walking out on a promise of fullness

and unbridled abundance, did he

choose somehow to stand on hindlegs

and see whence came the thunderous 

offer? You who are made in my image,

shall have dominion over all that you

see and taste, all that is still or moves,

or none but the courage to choose. 

He chose to shape his own order out

of the unseen chaos of growth he

occupied East of Eden, and decided:

We will gather ourselves some fig leaves. 

We will make ourselves our own image. 

--- Albert B. Casuga

11-08-11

Illustration: Adam and Eve in Paradise by Jan Brueghel the Elder