! ! Nature's Rebuke; Or, What Are Words Worth? Poem by Michael Shepherd

Only recently, you asked me
for my ‘Laws’ – as if you asked the Sun
just where his golden rays shall, in the moment, strike…

and now you rashly ask me, why, then, I create…

you should not have questioned me..
but understand me as I understand myself:
keep silent; understand by silence;
for I am not accustomed to your human talk..

For what is there to understand? What comes to be
comes as the object of my silent contemplation;
comes into being naturally; it is myself.

I too was born of such a contemplation;
and so I have a natural love for that;

as geometricians contemplate, and then may draw,
so my contemplation – in my timeless nature –
brings out of passing time, the products of myself;

and if you find new lines
in bodies that come forth from me,
I did not draw them; though they come from me..

the lines, the frills
of daffodils
all shine, not by my planned design
but from tranquillity;

just contemplate;
and in that state
I’ll be your village preacher;
taken, shaken, by surprise,
you too shall share my nature;

morning, evening,
here nor there,
earth hath no earthly manmade thing
to show more naturally fair;

be tranquil, Will, and just be still;
in silent scents, to taste my will..
all else is hubris; blasphemy;
shut up! and have respect for Me…’

*

[The first part of the poem follows closely
Plotinus' Ennead III 8,4,1-10;
the second part, er, followed..]