On Pondering a Variant from Vindobonensis

My mind moves slowly,
as slow as the incoming clouds,
slightly faster than adagietto
though I hope to think
thoughts less vaporous
and more Viennese.

Reading Lakatos and Plato's "Timeaus" in the Afternoon after Babysitting in the Morning

Insight may be nothing more than guessing --
modestly, courageously -- but still some
questions answer themselves as if divined.
For example,
"Why should we notice the little girl
whose budding humanity -- in full
bloom already -- makes it difficult
to put the cap back on the
juice and easy to love the
cosmos in its all-fangled beauty?"

Eye Exam: Timaeus 28a-b

The most difficult test of vision
Is to see that which cannot be seen.
I tell you, and so too will St. Paul,
To look -- There! -- for the unseen thing, which
is not the clear water only seen
through nor the aim of the basilisk
stare now fixed by time’s moving image.

“Tell me:
Better one, two, about the same?
Better three, four, about the same?
Now look at that and tell me what you see.”

“T, O, K, A, T, A, T, A, U, T, A, E, CH, O, N.”

Beautifully done.

In My Opinion: Timaeus 27d-28a

The bloom of what in every way is and the
almost flash of what comes to be must
always be the most different, must almost

come to be in all ways different.
The flash, born to be seen by the eyes alone;
the bloom, unbegotten, is unseen.

Menu: Timaeus 27a-b

For the first course:
a mix of
opinions
on the cosmos,
humankind,
and everything
else, prepared
by our best
gastronomer.

The second course
(eaten first),
is an ideal
blend of justice
and the good
on a Bed of
education.

The third course,
which can't be
finished, makes
men of us all.

Don't forget
to say grace.

Atlantis: Timaeus 20c–26e

Truth is strange, not just stranger than fiction,
But a good story is a goodly store
Of truth when heard from a friend of a friend.
A good story—beginning, middle, end—
Makes philosophers kings, but no rhetor
Here looks so good and speaks with a diction
Sufficient to get around the truth of
The matter: Only in the olden days
Were men so good with laws to make stories
Out of them. One of Numenor’s glories,
So the myth goes, taught that he who obeys
Pleases the gods and those whom the gods love.

How Not to Start a Party: Timaeus 17a–20c

When one of us misses the feast, the others must pick up the slack in proportion and fill in what’s now left out. When one of us happens to miss, I’m sure the guest host says to himself, “Well, now, this is awkward.” And the reputable etiquette guides all counsel never to count on proportions turning out the way we know they should. But how one could know all this at the beginning, is not easy for two or three to say.

“Did you all remember your assignments?” is not what I want to hear at a party. And then, afterward, my friend asks, “What kind of party was it, anyway?” But there I was, the life of it. If I were someone else, I’d want to shoot myself for that.

When the conversation turns to politics: We all know what the etiquette guides say about that (even the disreputable ones agree): “Subtly turn the conversation to something more suitable.” Are there any good movies you’d like to see? A war movie? My, I didn’t think you were into those sorts of things.

(Take my advice: A languishing party, like a sleeping tiger at the zoo—not the sort of thing to engender much enthusiasm. Best at that point to start drinking or leave. Whatever happens next, won’t be worth remembering.)

An Occasional Series

I'm going to start an occasional series of poems inspired by Plato's Timaeus. The first entry follows. (Caveat lector: No one said it will be good poetry.)