Franklin Merrell-Wolff: A Poetic Interlude

A POETIC INTERLUDE

Am I a man? Yet also am I a god,
For I am that which comprehends both gods and men.
I move among men in the form of a man,
Fallible, more or less good, like the rest.
Yet, also, I shine with the gods in Glory.
I compress Myself in the mineral,
Inert and long-enduring.
Ceaselessly I grow as a plant,
and am driven by desire as animal.
I am in all, yet ever Beyond all.
A Flame am I that nowhere remains;
I consume all.

As I write I am sitting on a pavement of cement.
A tree grows near, its roots, soft and brittle, beneath that pavement.
Ceaselessly, slowly, but inevitably, those roots expand.
The cement gives way, its resistance impotent.
So, too, I expand, inevitably, remorselessly, in this world.
Before Me no crystallization can stand.
In the end, all other powers fail;
My own, once more, return to Me.

What matters health, sickness or death;
Passing modes in the endless Stream of Life?
In health I go forth, perchance to forget;
In sickness I look within and remember.
Which is the greater blessing?
I know not.
Men seek health. I seek not at all.
I give health and accept the blessing of sickness.
Yet, beyond all these, AM I— Unbound.

Do I look for faults in men?
Then surely I will find them;
Dishonesty, lust, greed, hatred, and all the rest.
All these come with immense fecundity.
Do I look beyond to the good?
Then what a glorious paragon is man!
Generous, kind, and fair-dealing.
Which of these is the real?
Neither and both. Man reflects just what I seek.

Franklin Merrell-Wolff (1887-1985)
Pathways through to Space, LIV (9-11-1936)
(2nd Edition, Julian Press, NY, 1973, pp. 136-137)

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