Opus IV, Epigram III, Variations i and ii.

           Variation i


           With something like consciousness in our minds
           We can recreate what we want to do one time
           And again. It is our virtual theater. We can with it
           Prepare what we want to do anytime and again.
5         Hence, we can play the piano or we can play it in
           Our minds. Virtual piano playing. That way lies
           Perfection. A natural adaptation. It is a kind of magic.
           If you were a hunter in the Pleistocene, your
           Virtual theater enables you to hunt the Mammoth
10       As many times as you need in your mind, and
           Introduce in your virtual recreation all the errors
           That memory shows you to have committed in the
           Past. Next day, a gentle breeze, the Sun coming out,
           The Mammoth lies at your feet. Homo sapiens is
15       The most dangerous of predators. None can beat
           Consciousness. That is (perhaps) why nature selected it.


          Variation ii


          Suppose that the birth of consciousness were to value.
          To give life meaning, to make life precious and valuable.
          It is nothing surprising, now that natural selection
          Is the real question and only game in our universe.
5        So perhaps it will come a time when you will know:
          The very great thought is to know how to feel.
          That is what your consciousness does for you,
          What it is all about as a natural adaptation:
          To feel is to love being alive, to love our selves.
10      With no feelings to cherish, consciousness would be
          A virtual theater (which it is) with no audience nor play.
          How could such an adaptation have been selected
          By nature? The answer, my friend, is feeling the wind
          Blowing, not what blowing in the wind means.
15      The meaning of consciousness and its magic were sabotaged
          By religion and superstition. There was a time before
          And a time after Darwin. Spinoza and the Radical 
          Enlightenment already prepared the way for him. 
          Is not the feeling of knowledge also something gratifying?
20     And why write epigrams about it, why the joy of it, can
          You explain it to me what Art is? Imagination, sensation,
          Perception, contemplation of essences in the present moment.
          Philosophy is too good not to read about it, too good.
          Freedom of speech, freedom to philosophize. Spinoza 
25      and Darwin. Our world is so great and– That is consciousness. 
          It gives to us imagination and projection. Sensation and feeling.
          It is the way for a celebration of life.




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Piece extracted from Opus IV, forthcoming.