A simple poem with some complex ideas. My wife once said she liked it, so that must mean something. I cannot remember what event inspired it, but, it contains the recurring theme of time and the problems related to when events start and end. For me, it touches on the notion of the “Infinitesimal” in mathematics – the sort of concept that gets me to sleep at night when, eventually, my brain gives up and says it has had enough…
Conception
Somewhere beyond our comprehension
In a distant place, where even wisdom’s wild
Despite all obstacle or human tension
Within the mind of an innocent child
Are held the keys to a universe
Ideas that will change a way of life
A culture wherein exist diverse
Beliefs that transcend all earthly strife
Time there observed in a relative plane
The calendar, yet, to run its course
Where the wounded cannot feel their pain
And beings move without any force
This child cannot distinguish birth
From life, or death, or anguish
Only survival has objective worth
Every moment lived is lived with relish
That first struggle is not of our world
Though shared with every being
Neither warm nor cold, in cocoon curled
Those eyes do no sightseeing
We do not know this point in space
Nor live this moment in our time
The earliest memory of the human race
Here given life by rhythm and rhyme
When does our span start to exist?
What determines its coordinates?
Questions that our minds resist
Though the day, they say, for no man waits
Moments have no mortal meaning
Mere metaphysical perception
Not yet the washing and the weaning
Before all rational thought must come conception