Heraclitus

Heraclitus

Plato said
there is an old quarrel
between
philosophy and poetry.

In the dawn
of our written record
when philosophy
had not yet
been discovered
in Greece
there came
a new kind of singer
a vagrant
a wanderer
a poet
who sang a new kind of song
and one of these
jobless, wandering singers
was named
Heraclitus
whose poems were named
as nightingales
for their music
for their beauty
for their truth
but Heraclitus
that tormented soul
who knew both
hate and love
are intimately woven
are intimately kin
are intimately one
was hated for his word
was hated for his song
was hated for his truth
and they drove him off
to Diana's sanctuary
where guards prevented
his escape
his relief
his life
he starved to death
and now
is all but forgotten
except by poets
who love him
and philosophers
who hate him.

Poetry
is seeing the wonder
is seeing the emotion
is seeing the oneness
of the universe
and trying
to express it
to realize it
to become it
using these inadequate things
called
words.

Philosophy
is seeing the wonder
is seeing the geometry
is seeing the reason
of the universe
and trying
to express it
to convey it
to think it
using these inadequate things
called
words.

Socrates said
After all, everything
that is responsible for creating
something out of nothing
is a kind of poetry;
and so all the creations
of every craft and profession
are themselves a kind of poetry,
and everyone who practices a craft
is a poet.

There is
no quarrel
between poetry and philosophy
there is only
an argument
inane and selfish
between
poets and philosophers
who are not
poets and philosophers
for the two
are
born of the same mother
and her name is
wonder.

Callimachus said
They told me,
Heraclitus,
they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear
and bitter tears to shed;
I wept, as I remembered,
how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking,
and sent him down the sky.