Three Poems
Wind
The wind roars up the valley
tearing and ripping
at tall trees
bending before its relentless might
sapping my will to resist
Huddled before its onslaught
I yearn for home
My dog leans against me
bewildered by the gale's sudden fury
eyes meet
pleading
What now?
~~~~~~~~~~
Snowflakes
Awareness steals into my being
Who, where, what, am I?
I seem but one of many
in my descent from the infinite
I dance lazily down
sometimes wafting back up
in swirls of random energy,
then downward again
Where am I going?
Then joining the ocean
there is no longer
an I.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Frame
Unyielding frame of brass
what memories are buried in your alloys?
Do you recall a time when you were joined
by hellish heat in some fiery cauldron?
Your antique shape hints of lovers
soft images once nestled within
your sculpted edges, now gone
What histories do you recall?
Did part of you once dangle
from a mother's neck
enclosing the image of a boy
now disappeared into manhood?
~~~~~~~~~~
ON A CLEAR NIGHT
Have you ever lived where on any clear night you can clearly see the stars in the heavens? As a child growing up on the prairie without electricity, I regularly had that privilege. I remember lying on my back staring at the heavens and wondering where they ended. I next wondered what lay behind the end, and what lay beyond that, etc. It would break up my thinking process, drive me nuts, because of course my mind could not deal with the infinite.
I did not then know that there are approximately 10,000 stars visible to the naked eye from any point on earth. Nor did I then know that our scientists believe that there are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone. This means that for every star I could see, there were at least another 10 million in just our galaxy. Some scientists further believe that our galaxy is just one of at least 100 billion galaxies. Numbers like these cannot be grasped by the human mind. I can write them. I can do calculations with them, but I am totally incapable of grasping their enormity.
On a more personal level, I am led to believe that I am made up of about one trillion cells, (1000 billion). That is a astounding number – that is; have I 10 times as many cells in my body as there are stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Despite this, each cell is equivalent to an intricate factory that performs a host of chores to keep my body running well. If this isn’t enough to stagger your imagination, then contemplate this; within each cell is a blue print for my entire body. Each cell has all the information needed to produce another identical twin of me! Though it has not yet been done with humans, cloning is today a proven reality. David Bohm, the noted British physicist, wrote that each of my cells is not just a blueprint for me, but for the entire universe.
When I try to contemplate the marvel of this creation, I cannot but be overcome with awe that defies description. The feelings that it engenders in me are impossible to convey to another.
To reduce these feelings to simplistic names and terms loses the very essence of what I am trying to convey. You will seldom therefore hear me use a term like “God” because all it does is make you think that I am talking about your idea of God when my concept may be totally different. I would rather use the word “life” in place of the word “God.”
I especially don’t like to use the word God because it tends to trivialize a creative process that is so profound that it cannot even begin to be imagined, let alone grasped. The only religions I am aware of that appear to treat it as such are Taoism and Zen Buddhism. Some early Jewish people also seemed to have had a similar outlook in that they would not give this force a name, but referred to the creator as “the nameless one.”
The Christian religion in my opinion does not seem to share the profound awe of creation that should boggle the mind of any informed person. It trivializes it by naming it and by giving it gender, (its god is always a “he” who has a right side and a left side), by treating it as something resembling an aged human male, and by endowing it with a human personality.
Most Christians equate the word sin with wrong doing, when it was from a Greek term borrowed from archery, and means to fall short of the mark (target). It means to fall short of ones aspirations – to not live up to ones ideals. The Christian religion alone endows us with original sin from which we can be saved only through Jesus. In Academia this is referred to as setting up a straw man that can then be demolished. In my opinion, the Christian churches have built wonderfully successful businesses by inducing a sense of shame and guilt in their adherents, and then providing help to overcome it.
Somerset Maugham recognized the importance of guilt in the Christian religion when he wrote in his short story, “Rain” When we went there they had no sense of sin at all. …and I think that was the most difficult part of my work, to instill into the natives the sense of sin.
Many of my moral values are of course rooted in my Christian heritage, but I believe that most of these values are common to all the great religions.
I did not then know that there are approximately 10,000 stars visible to the naked eye from any point on earth. Nor did I then know that our scientists believe that there are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone. This means that for every star I could see, there were at least another 10 million in just our galaxy. Some scientists further believe that our galaxy is just one of at least 100 billion galaxies. Numbers like these cannot be grasped by the human mind. I can write them. I can do calculations with them, but I am totally incapable of grasping their enormity.
On a more personal level, I am led to believe that I am made up of about one trillion cells, (1000 billion). That is a astounding number – that is; have I 10 times as many cells in my body as there are stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Despite this, each cell is equivalent to an intricate factory that performs a host of chores to keep my body running well. If this isn’t enough to stagger your imagination, then contemplate this; within each cell is a blue print for my entire body. Each cell has all the information needed to produce another identical twin of me! Though it has not yet been done with humans, cloning is today a proven reality. David Bohm, the noted British physicist, wrote that each of my cells is not just a blueprint for me, but for the entire universe.
When I try to contemplate the marvel of this creation, I cannot but be overcome with awe that defies description. The feelings that it engenders in me are impossible to convey to another.
To reduce these feelings to simplistic names and terms loses the very essence of what I am trying to convey. You will seldom therefore hear me use a term like “God” because all it does is make you think that I am talking about your idea of God when my concept may be totally different. I would rather use the word “life” in place of the word “God.”
I especially don’t like to use the word God because it tends to trivialize a creative process that is so profound that it cannot even begin to be imagined, let alone grasped. The only religions I am aware of that appear to treat it as such are Taoism and Zen Buddhism. Some early Jewish people also seemed to have had a similar outlook in that they would not give this force a name, but referred to the creator as “the nameless one.”
The Christian religion in my opinion does not seem to share the profound awe of creation that should boggle the mind of any informed person. It trivializes it by naming it and by giving it gender, (its god is always a “he” who has a right side and a left side), by treating it as something resembling an aged human male, and by endowing it with a human personality.
Most Christians equate the word sin with wrong doing, when it was from a Greek term borrowed from archery, and means to fall short of the mark (target). It means to fall short of ones aspirations – to not live up to ones ideals. The Christian religion alone endows us with original sin from which we can be saved only through Jesus. In Academia this is referred to as setting up a straw man that can then be demolished. In my opinion, the Christian churches have built wonderfully successful businesses by inducing a sense of shame and guilt in their adherents, and then providing help to overcome it.
Somerset Maugham recognized the importance of guilt in the Christian religion when he wrote in his short story, “Rain” When we went there they had no sense of sin at all. …and I think that was the most difficult part of my work, to instill into the natives the sense of sin.
Many of my moral values are of course rooted in my Christian heritage, but I believe that most of these values are common to all the great religions.
Another reason that I am not an admirer of organized religion is that it is almost always based on outdated beliefs that do not stand up to objective scrutiny. An example is the Roman Catholic Church which took almost 400 years to acknowledge Galileo and his discoveries, or the Fundamentalists who teach “Creationism” and say the world is only six thousand years old.
If you must label me, call me a mystic for I am in profound awe of creation, which to me is an ongoing and never ending process
If you must label me, call me a mystic for I am in profound awe of creation, which to me is an ongoing and never ending process
~~~~~~~~~~
3 poems:
Used by permission of the author
From: "sfumato" Shoreline Writers' Chapbook series, issue 11, c2011
Posted with permission of the author. All rights reserved.
(The Shoreline Writers' Society meets on the 3rd Sunday of every month at the
Port Moody Arts Centre , 2425 St. John's St., Port Moody, BC.)
ON A CLEAR NIGHT:
Used by permission of the author
From: A WAY TO LIVE, POETRY AND MUSINGS
Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 Larry Jacobsen
Second Edition, Revision 1
Printed in Port Coquitlam, BC
~~~~~~~~~~Used by permission of the author
From: "sfumato" Shoreline Writers' Chapbook series, issue 11, c2011
Posted with permission of the author. All rights reserved.
(The Shoreline Writers' Society meets on the 3rd Sunday of every month at the
Port Moody Arts Centre , 2425 St. John's St., Port Moody, BC.)
ON A CLEAR NIGHT:
Used by permission of the author
From: A WAY TO LIVE, POETRY AND MUSINGS
Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 Larry Jacobsen
Second Edition, Revision 1
Printed in Port Coquitlam, BC
also from Larry Jacobsen
JEWEL OF THE KOOTENAYS:
THE EMERALD MINE
Soft cover, published, approx. 352 pp. 8¼ x 10½,
Soft cover, published, approx. 352 pp. 8¼ x 10½,
published by, and available from, Salmo Arts and Museum Society,
104 - 4th St., Salmo, BC, V0G 1Z0
from: Sultan Minerals review:
"...Tucked away in the West Kootenays, the well-known Emerald mine operated
under three different owners, between 1905 and 1973. Now for the first
time the history of this mine has been compiled in a book.
Author Larry Jacobsen, himself a former miner and Canex employee,
is uniquely qualified to write this book. He worked at the mine for a
short period in the 1950s, and it was some former colleagues who sold
him on telling their stories.
The book is richly illustrated with hundreds of photographs, with
some in colour, as well as a number of diagrams and maps, which all
help to bring the mine and its people to life..."
read the complete review at Sultanminerals.com
To book a workshop, learn more about Mr. Jacobsen's presentation or book a school visit, please contact him directly: starrider@shaw.ca.
Mineral resources Education Program guest speakers program. Mr. Jacobsen's school presentation is free. He asks that each school purchase two books for the library.
about Larry Jacobsen
Mr. Jacobsen now lives in Port Coquitlam, B.C. He retired for the last time at age 78 (from paying work). Jewel of the Kootenays is his third book.
Biography condensed from: Mineral Resources Education Program
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