FICTION, ESSAYS, POETRY

From time to time, I plan to add a short piece of writing to this page, maybe something I think others will enjoy, perhaps a poem, or notes about what I’m working on at the moment.

from Guam and Other Islands: A Miscellany. ..(July 2024)

Islands and Continents

          If one starts thinking about islands, there is no escaping John Donne's claim in Meditation 17 (1624), long taught in every high school English Literature class, that "No man is an Iland, intire of itself; every man is a peece of the continent, a part of the maine."  His extended metaphor urges us to consider ourselves united with all "Mankinde."

            Things have changed a bit since Donne's time. We no longer consider the word "mankind" as embracing all human life, for one thing. Other genders recoil at the patriarchal term. This does not in the least cause us to deny the breadth of Donne's forceful intellect, the beauty of his writing, or its effects on subsequent writers.

            But we also have reached beyond Donne's time for a new worldview, primarily due to contemporary science. Today there is no need to pick either continent or island, for we now know that both particle and wave exist simultaneously. We now have a new metaphysical conceit for our place in the universe.

             We are a discrete particle, perhaps untraceable, fulfilling a point in the immense birthing of all possible points in our theoretical universe while riding the wave of energy and light that is life itself, enmeshed forever, changing, but undying. We are both island and continent. That is life's gift: to know ourselves as unique and to know ourselves as totally bound to all of life, person-less, existing in the tolling of the bell. Riding this paradox, moment to moment, is our life's work.

I’m hovering around an idea right now of producing a book combining short pieces of writing with artwork. We’ll see how it goes. Here’s a sample page or two.