About time

[just mercedes]

Even when you don't know the Zen koan about enlightenment "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." I think the idea gets through.

The first part of the poem reflects the universal Deluge myth. Every culture has one, with the survival of only one family, the 'righteous'.

The second juxtaposes the results of 'righteous' men in their efforts to be admired by posterity - a lot of effort wasted.

The third seems to recognise that, and turns back to the only things in life worth doing.

 I don't understand your need to insert anything in the final stanza - in fact, I'm trying to pare it down even further.

Thanks for your read and comments.

i interpreted something more neurotic: that rhetorical question on the first stanza felt more scornful. instead of the speaker reflecting on the futility of the material world, i though the speaker was monologuing why he was 'chopping wood, fetching water' in this our age of steel: she thought she was noach, or pyrrha, or tupu-tupu-nui-a-uta. the stone-wood note in my first read i think illustrates the connection -- 'righteous men' make gods of themselves, righteous men pray to god their ships hold. in fact a cursory reading on the temple of Sais may retract from a decidedly feminist reading, since as far as i know that temple-soon-to-be-drowned was dedicated to a divine female.

at any rate, two more helpful notes: again, Elephantiné, i think, not Elaphantiné; and, if you really wanna pare that haiku, consider cutting 'across the sky'.

Thanks RVN - for the spelling, and the suggestion. I think I wanted the sky/I rhyme, even though ... thinking of the sky as time, clouds as things happening in the outside world that only really cast shadows ... then I'm back in the cave. I'll leave it for a while, but thanks!