THE BIG QUESTIONS 5: CHOOSING CHAOS

(April 5, 2013) Day 5 of NaPoMo (National Poetry Month, April) and here is my poem-a-day answer to one of the Big Questions posited by Simon Blackburn in his "Am I Free? (Choices and Responsibility)".*

CHOOSING CHAOS

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 into 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 hind legs
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

*Simon Blackburn is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina. The Big Questions: Philosophy was published by Quercus Publishing Plc, London, UK, 2009.