Neighbors Comments

BTW This passage from AGNOSTIC/PROGNOSTIC is a beautifully simple in expression but holds within the essence of the Christian worldview and redemptive knowledge: TO EMPTY MYSELF OF THE FLESH / AND RELINGUISH MY DESTINY / TO JESU / THE CHRISTOS. The theme of sacrifice is clearly stated. In NEIGHBORS the passage IN THE ORDINARY / AN EPIPHANY provides a wonderful point for the poem to come to rest. That famous lapsed Catholic, James Joyce, broadened the word to fit the secular context, but still retain its numinous aura. I love your precise description of the animals, they live real physical lives in your poem but seemed touched by something beyond that physicality, perhaps that numinous aura of the epiphany. I do believe that animals carry within some trans-physical dimension of being, and they possess souls, which the nuns in school told us was false. But too many other spiritual traditions affirm the numinous shines from within animal existence