George the Green? Sceptical George? Born-again George?
Unborn-again George? Humanist George? Scientist George...?’
To which I might reply, ‘I need his help to label my latest persona:
If I can find him and question him, I shall know who I am now.’
This introduces a paradox: if, while searching for the truth,
I have not been redefining my individuality, delimiting my personality
And abilities, honing my skills of self-identification, as I might
Study the Sphagna, how will I recognize myself when I find him?
6. Have I really assimilated the meaning of Sphagnum auriculatum?
In the beginning, before science, the earth was meaningless and void:
Truth had been created by wish and superstition. Science came
And jostled with the ancient lore, and said, ‘Let the waters of faith
Come together into a single mass and let the dry land appear.’ And so
It did appear. Science called the waters ‘illusion’ and dry land ‘truth’.
Science said, ‘Let there be two lights in the sky over the island,
The one that people may toil by day in the banal and the habitual,
Rationally for profits, the other to indicate the nights of celebration
When the processes of life and nature reveal some clue to their being
Perfectly ordered.’ And it was so. Science called the first light ‘Practice’
And the second light ‘Process’. But while the poet and sage knew that the soul
That followed every suggestion of Process in life and nature was renewed
Thereby, in joy or sadness,¹ by the tranquil radiance of the nocturnal light,²
Practice held the day and was the light of all manipulative reason:
People slept when they could have discovered renewal’s source,
And by day venerated Practice, ruts for thought plied by the traffic
Of profitable ideas. And so Process was blotted out by enforced dullness.
I have known dullness of mind and heart, chloroformed and crushed
By the daily grind, and blind fanaticism, when self-awareness foundered
Upon a creed: tedium taught oblivion and unconcern for the meaning
² symbolizing not the night of the soul, or the negation of light, but the time when petty worldly affairs are lost in a desire for the universal.