Amaze Ourselves Poem by gershon hepner

Whenever we amaze ourselves we wonder
where we're going next,
oblivious of bosh and blah and blunder
as we shape the text
whose lines are like the memories we cherish
for bygone days that we
regret perhaps but, since the light is garish,
recall haphazardly.
Lines come to life unconsciously and linger
because we write them truly
not knowing what is written by the finger
that moves in ways unruly
to find the words we cannot read before
the text has been completed,
for poems are like life, with little more
within their lines secreted,
spontaneous generation, rarely planned,
than destinies allow
to lives we live but cannot understand,
yet muddle through somehow.


Richard E. Mooney writes about Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' in 'How dickens Added Bah! to Humbug! ' (NYT, December 26,1998) . After a performance of 'A Christmas Carol' in Paris Dickens wrote: 'I got things out of old 'Carol' - effects, I mean - so entirely new and so very strong, that I quite amazed myself and wondered where I was going next.' At the end of his last performance in 1870 he told the audience: 'From these garish lights I vanish now forevermore, with a heartfelt, respectful and affectionate farewell.'

12/26/98