rorty on poetry

"There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves." Richard Rorty

in response to his baptist cousin’s question

as to whether he had started looking to

religion

as a way of dealing with his newfound pancreatic cancer

of which

nothing medical could be done

he simply replied, “no”---

to one son asking if philosophy was doing anything for him

he repeated the same---

in fact, it wasn’t until he was asked if anything at all

had brought him meaning in those last days,

that he answered without pause---

“poetry.”

 

beyond all the vast reading that this brilliant man had done in his life

all the intellectual horizons that he had pondered

it was the

“slow meanders” & “stuttering embers”

which brought him life---

the flavors of words which he himself could never cook up

those rhythms &

rhymes

which the likes straight-up philosophers had never seemed to grasp

with the same

umph

that poetry did.

 

may the rest of us be so lucky as to “stockpile” our hearts & minds with the words of our favorite poets

&

lyricists

who have formed the backbone of every step through this hopscotch game we call

life.