rituals

Dances through time

Folder: 
Poems

Ancient rites, once revered, now reel

In playgrounds where children peal

With laughter, unaware of the seal

That time has placed on what was real.

 

Solemn steps of shamans past

Morph into games that last and last,

As cultural currents, swift and vast,

Erode the essence, unsurpassed.

 

Tribal truths, once held so dear,

Trickle down through time's frontier.

Sacred symbols disappear,

Leaving echoes faint but clear.

 

Profound becomes profane, we find,

As generations leave behind

The weight of wisdom, once enshrined,

Now light as air and unconfined.

 

From archaic altars to schoolyard scenes,

The dance of time intervenes,

Transforming what tradition means—

A metamorphosis of memes.

 

So sacred turns to silly play,

As yesterday fades into today.

Yet in this change, we might survey

The threads that bind us, come what may

Author's Notes/Comments: 

This poem was inspired by Sir James George Frazer and his theories discussed in The Golden Bough.

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In That Japanese Town Again

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Reedited 10.25.2022:

 

1.  Replaced the word Conservancy with its more appropriate word designation for what I was thinking about by the time of its inception (I was mistaken at the proper word usage to mean the preservation of Japan's traditional buildings or architectures or, definitely, its own heritage reflected in many of its natural landscapes, notwithstanding its built environment (rojis, satoyama, Takayama City, et al).

 

2.  Reedited form, despite being a free-verse form, just to make one long line to not stand out

awkwardly from the seemingly uniformly ordered poem.

Unconventional Breakfast Rituals (American Norms)

Author's Notes/Comments: 

3rd Reedition (10.08.2022 [06:20]) Added the following, or beside the poem's title, as its subtitle: (American Norms).

 

2nd Reedition (10.08.2022 [05:56] )  Free verse was restructured by moving "—" in [deemed] more appropriate spaces because of its affective quality, like (perhaps) a function served by a "caesura" that could mean a lot, or contribute to,  the conveyance of the verses' very expressive qualities (in or by themselves).

 

Reedited (09.30.2022):  Added more content and more delineated tropes and shaped a more grammatical English in the mix up against one's switch between paradigms (of the vernaculars held or modified as part of one's evolving cultural history or embedded linguistic indentity).