Life, Death, and Continuous Change
(Three themes prevalent in Terry Wolverton's Mystery Bruise)
What is this that takes the immoral, the wicked, and the weak? What is this that takes the righteous and the strong. We have referred to it as our end, departure, extinction, impending doom, eternal rest, last sleep, and most certainly our final summons -at least, as far as known life is concerned-. The Bible has named it, "the latter end". Shakespeare has called it "the journey's end" and "a knell that summons thee to heaven or hell". The dark side, as Pink Floyd relates to it, is a prevailing aspect of our lives. No matter how one refers to death, three things are certain: First, it is inevitable. Second, it will happen to everyone. Third, it needs life to occur and yet is in opposition to it. Because of death holding it's shadow to the divine spark of life, it is obvious that whenever a person talks of death they invariably talk of life. True to this statement are Terry Wolverton's poems in Mystery Bruise. Her poems embrace aspects of life as she sees it and almost all of these "dancing insights" mention death. In addition to death running hand and hand with life is the concept of continuous change. Wolverton mentions change and human's inability to accept it.
I believe that living beings are weary of change because like death it requires entrance into a land of uncertainty. The poem "We Resist Evolution" approaches this ideology of change. Wolverton opens the poem by stating that every living thing resists evolution. She writes about the cell that refuses to split, "the shapeless blind-eyed swimmers who did not long to crawl or breathe", and her metamorphosis in a woman-like body. The changes/evolutions depicted in this poem all deal with death and life as well. It's obvious that she mentions living things and their metamorphosis' but maybe not so obvious is the inherent fact that with every metamorphosis a death occurs-that is the... [continues]
(Three themes prevalent in Terry Wolverton's Mystery Bruise)
What is this that takes the immoral, the wicked, and the weak? What is this that takes the righteous and the strong. We have referred to it as our end, departure, extinction, impending doom, eternal rest, last sleep, and most certainly our final summons -at least, as far as known life is concerned-. The Bible has named it, "the latter end". Shakespeare has called it "the journey's end" and "a knell that summons thee to heaven or hell". The dark side, as Pink Floyd relates to it, is a prevailing aspect of our lives. No matter how one refers to death, three things are certain: First, it is inevitable. Second, it will happen to everyone. Third, it needs life to occur and yet is in opposition to it. Because of death holding it's shadow to the divine spark of life, it is obvious that whenever a person talks of death they invariably talk of life. True to this statement are Terry Wolverton's poems in Mystery Bruise. Her poems embrace aspects of life as she sees it and almost all of these "dancing insights" mention death. In addition to death running hand and hand with life is the concept of continuous change. Wolverton mentions change and human's inability to accept it.
I believe that living beings are weary of change because like death it requires entrance into a land of uncertainty. The poem "We Resist Evolution" approaches this ideology of change. Wolverton opens the poem by stating that every living thing resists evolution. She writes about the cell that refuses to split, "the shapeless blind-eyed swimmers who did not long to crawl or breathe", and her metamorphosis in a woman-like body. The changes/evolutions depicted in this poem all deal with death and life as well. It's obvious that she mentions living things and their metamorphosis' but maybe not so obvious is the inherent fact that with every metamorphosis a death occurs-that is the... [continues]
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