the world in all its goodness
moving from moment to moment
its former waters first a memory
then a calm oblivion of generations
in a thousand years perhaps
we will be young enough to say
what did we learn amidst the ruins
of ourselves and the broken monuments
what did we learn when displaced
from who we are, before fatigue
set in, as our bones quaked with drumbeats
what did we learn about unity
and the compulsion to have no other
when the moments tick multiplicitous
and every flower has its firm root
what did we learn in the pathology
of our own forgetfulness, too drunk
on the taste to notice how it spun us
until even war was obscene privation
and battlefields multiplied their surfaces
in a thousand years perhaps
we will be young enough to utter
our true tokens, to find the door within
rooted in manifold feasting together
and trace our fingertips along its
filigrees of horn and ivory and stardust
and this knowledge will be firmer than metal
for it was not forged from jealousy
or envy or lack or animosity or enmity
but the faith and truth and love remaining
after many lifetimes of tired meanders
For the benefit of those who don’t have the commentary to hand/at mind:
“And so, according to [Plato], evil exists, it stems from particular causes, and it is rendered good thanks to the boniform providence of the Demiurge, because nothing is altogether evil but in one way or another each thing is produced in accordance with justice and [the purposes of] God.” || “[B]eings which are particular but are autonomous and act externally produce an outcome which is evil for themselves, but in one way or another this too is good and in accordance with [the purposes of] God.” || “[T]o the extent that they have acted against themselves they have ruined their lives by becoming actively evil, but to the extent that they have suffered at the hands of the universe, they have made requital for their [evil] choice.” || “[I]ndeed the soul moves from one rank to another simply [as a result of] having made a choice, for every choice either elevates the soul or drags it down.”
(Some sections from those pages, trans. Runia & Share, brackets theirs.)
“So that according to [Plato] evil exists, is from partial causes, and is benefited through the boniform providence of the Demiurgus, because there is nothing which is entirely evil, but every thing is in a certain respect accomplished conformably to justice and divinity.” || [P]artial natures which are self-motive indeed, and whose energy is directed to externals, cause that which is effected by their energy to be evil to themselves, yet in a certain respect that is also good, and conformable to divinity.” || “And so far as it proceeds from them and is directed to them, it is evil; but so far as it proceeds from the universe to them, it is not evil.” || “For the electing soul alone is transferred to another order. For all choice either elevates the soul, or draws it downward.”
(same passages mentioned above, only trans. Taylor.)
KALLISTI 