Three Simple Questions Ad Infinitum
Lately I’ve been focusing upon the answers to three questions: Where do I come from? What am I? Where am I going? I’ve borrowed these questions from Ronald Wright who got them from Paul Gauguin, who inscribed the three queries in French upon a painting he did in Tahiti at the end of the 19th century.
Wright used them to open his lecture series in Canada, based upon his book length essay entitled The Short History of Progress, which also has been published as a book with CD’s in accompaniment. In it, Wright traces and details our whole history as human beings with an eye ever on the present and with glimpses into the near future. His work begs investigation, procurement, and enjoyment.
The questions are really where do we come from? what are we? and where are we going? I brought these questions before my seniors last week and framed them a bit differently in their extensions. I told my students to fill in the blank as often as necessary or desired, using as many roles played in their lives, real or imagined.
For example, where have I been as a brother or sister? what am I as a brother or sister? where am I going as a brother or sister? Where have I been as a mother or father? What am I as a mother or father? Where am I going as a mother or father? Where have I been as a friend? What am I as a friend? Where am I going as a friend? Where have I been as a writer? What am I as a writer? Where am I going as a writer? Where have I been as an employee? What am I as an employee? Where am I going as an employee? You get the idea. Fill in the blank and go for it!
I guess the pursuit is rhetorical and highly introspective, something we do as we grow older. The questions serve as guideposts and checkpoints, propelling us forward and outward. The persistent examination can be singular, for each of us, or multitudinous, as we consider ourselves parts of larger and larger wholes. Where do we come from as a family, a town, a state, a nation? What are we as a family, a town, a state, a nation? Where are we going as a family, a town, a state, a nation?
This past week we marked the seventh anniversary of September 11. Oh, had there only been buildings involved, empty of humanity!
Because women and men, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, family and friends, acquaintances and associates, heroes and strangers, Americans and aliens had perished and survived that day, we must ask ourselves on all levels: where do we come from, what are we, and where are we going, as human beings?
For five years I could not assimilate as a poet the magnitude of what transpired in September 2001, so that I could write at least a response to the catastrophe. I am of the generation still reeling from the triple assassinations of our nation’s leadership in the 1960’s. I didn’t really write the following poem with 9/11 in mind at all. It was only in retrospect that I saw the imagery become poignant, meaningful, and provocative commentary on our recent and distant history, and possibly a harbinger of things to come, as it rose from the page after many readings in public places.
Chains of Change
Years disappear faster than they occur
while skin-whitening rages in Asia.
Progress no longer outpaces extinction
as babies forge chains of apocalypse.
The world encourages virtual lust:
games of conquest and possession.
Links of stone and bone and hate
interface with weeping born of change.
Televised, laser-guided surgical strikes;
religiously solicited, Semitic self-sacrifice.
Richest land bears no distinctive scent:
antiseptic laws and executive ablution.
Tunnel vision requires global anesthesia
as cities sift human dust for humanity.
- Michael J Hoover
Lately I’ve been focusing upon the answers to three questions: Where do I come from? What am I? Where am I going? I’ve borrowed these questions from Ronald Wright who got them from Paul Gauguin, who inscribed the three queries in French upon a painting he did in Tahiti at the end of the 19th century.
Wright used them to open his lecture series in Canada, based upon his book length essay entitled The Short History of Progress, which also has been published as a book with CD’s in accompaniment. In it, Wright traces and details our whole history as human beings with an eye ever on the present and with glimpses into the near future. His work begs investigation, procurement, and enjoyment.
The questions are really where do we come from? what are we? and where are we going? I brought these questions before my seniors last week and framed them a bit differently in their extensions. I told my students to fill in the blank as often as necessary or desired, using as many roles played in their lives, real or imagined.
For example, where have I been as a brother or sister? what am I as a brother or sister? where am I going as a brother or sister? Where have I been as a mother or father? What am I as a mother or father? Where am I going as a mother or father? Where have I been as a friend? What am I as a friend? Where am I going as a friend? Where have I been as a writer? What am I as a writer? Where am I going as a writer? Where have I been as an employee? What am I as an employee? Where am I going as an employee? You get the idea. Fill in the blank and go for it!
I guess the pursuit is rhetorical and highly introspective, something we do as we grow older. The questions serve as guideposts and checkpoints, propelling us forward and outward. The persistent examination can be singular, for each of us, or multitudinous, as we consider ourselves parts of larger and larger wholes. Where do we come from as a family, a town, a state, a nation? What are we as a family, a town, a state, a nation? Where are we going as a family, a town, a state, a nation?
This past week we marked the seventh anniversary of September 11. Oh, had there only been buildings involved, empty of humanity!
Because women and men, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, family and friends, acquaintances and associates, heroes and strangers, Americans and aliens had perished and survived that day, we must ask ourselves on all levels: where do we come from, what are we, and where are we going, as human beings?
For five years I could not assimilate as a poet the magnitude of what transpired in September 2001, so that I could write at least a response to the catastrophe. I am of the generation still reeling from the triple assassinations of our nation’s leadership in the 1960’s. I didn’t really write the following poem with 9/11 in mind at all. It was only in retrospect that I saw the imagery become poignant, meaningful, and provocative commentary on our recent and distant history, and possibly a harbinger of things to come, as it rose from the page after many readings in public places.
Chains of Change
Years disappear faster than they occur
while skin-whitening rages in Asia.
Progress no longer outpaces extinction
as babies forge chains of apocalypse.
The world encourages virtual lust:
games of conquest and possession.
Links of stone and bone and hate
interface with weeping born of change.
Televised, laser-guided surgical strikes;
religiously solicited, Semitic self-sacrifice.
Richest land bears no distinctive scent:
antiseptic laws and executive ablution.
Tunnel vision requires global anesthesia
as cities sift human dust for humanity.
- Michael J Hoover
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