Old Hag Crossing Bridge
Red cherry blossoms bloom
Opening vistas of past history
emerging from the morning mist
and from the mists of past memory
of events long gone but not forgotten
Old hag crossing bridge
leaving past behind
Bridge of mid-life crossed
Old Bag carries bag
She is bag lady
Photographer is poet
words are in her lens
but she is speechless
and cannot form words
So wordsmith articulates
visual poetry in photo
of Chinese photographer
She is pleased
she loves wordsmith
She knows what words are worth
from this modern day Wordsworth.
They are romantics he and she
She says she belongs the past
That is what the bridge is for
it links past with future
Never turn your back on the past
It might catch up with you
on the other side of the bridge
Some call it karma
You can't escape
The past follows you
You think you are old
but your steps shorten
like those of a child
and you walk with a cane
Life is a circle
like a snake eating its tail
We go back to the beginning
and start over again
The cycle of births and deaths
is unremitting and relentless
re-embodied souls in different bodies
But there is always a bridge
linking past and future
called the evolution of the soul
A Poeture Speaks a Thousand Words
Ouroboros (Greek fro "tail devourer"). Its 1st appearance was in the "Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld" found in the tomb of the 14th-century BCE pharaoh Tutankhamun, in which 2 serpents with their tails in their mouths (both manifestations of Mehen ("coiled one," a deity who protectively coils around Ra the sun god during his journey through the night); they are coiled around Ra's head, neck, and feet. Since it is written in cryptographic code (hence, "enigmatic") it is difficult to decipher, but is regarded as symbolizing the creation and rebirth of the sun, the beginning and end of time. According to Maurus Servius Honoratus in the 4th century, before the invention of writing the Egyptians symbolized the year as an ouboros because it "recurs on itself." The symbol appears in many cultures to illustrate the notion of infinite cyclicality. Platon's "Timaeus" described the cosmos as 1st created: "The living being had no need of eyes because there was nothing outside of him to be seen; nor of ears because there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he created thus; his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form which was designed by him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet." [--tr. Benjamin Jowett]
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