THE BIG QUESTIONS, 13: OCCUPYING THE GARDEN: A HUNGER (WHAT IF I WAS MADE FOR THE OTHER? WHAT DO I NEED? AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER? AM I DECEIVING MYSELF?)

This is Poem #13 in my Poem-a-day project to celebrate National Poetry Month (NaPoMo, April 2013) in response to life's Big Questions posed by philosophers like Simon Blackburn in his essay "How Can I Lie to Myself? (Self deception and Motivation)", and such related questions like 
 

"What Do I Need? What I If I Were Made for the Other? Am I my Brother's Keeper? Am I Deceiving Myself?"

 

Photo by Bobby Wong

 

 

OCCUPYING THE GARDEN: A HUNGER

What do I want, what do I need? Later, I tell myself, later. There’s plenty of work, the hours full of obligation. But I know I am not virtuous: I am always my hunger. ---From “Hunger” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa

What if this place were made only for the other?

You are yourself, but you are also others’ other.

Were you conceived for yourself, or for a specie?

Someone must extend the process of evolution.

Your first act out of the womb was to let out a cry.

Was it not to alert the birthing other you’re here?

And you will bring joy to a union forged in dreams,

but you could always be the unwanted obligation.

What if you were the inevitable happenstance

come from the aches of groin and gravid reasons?

Are you an issue of love or lust? An afterthought?

When did you start to even aspire to be yourself?

Dare you grow then to even ask: What do I want?

What do I need? Selfish angst? No. Must-ask ones.

One cannot give what one does not have, operatio

sequitur esse. Find and feed your hunger to know

what you are here for. Are you a brother’s keeper?

Or does a lover keep you? Either way, a hunger.

If you were for the other, you must be provident;

but fill your tills first before giving a ruddy cent.

Is your neighbour the village thief? Love him.

Clothe the naked, as you would with a fig leaf.

Before long, you would have guessed how little

you are without the other, and learn to whistle

in the dark, and wait, and build, and gather

behind walls, until, one on top of the other,

you begin to climb beyond your pauper space

to occupy a lost garden, a haven, as your place.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA