the wandering one
dreamer of dreams, the eternal
asker of answers
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
‘I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .’
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
From The House of Dust: A Symphony (Part One) by Conrad Aiken, (Boston, The Four Seas Press, 1920).
I was checking some dates on Conrad Aiken and saw that I had missed something on his Wikipedia page.
Mr. Aiken was born and lived in Savannah until he was 11.
Mr. Aiken wrote of his childhood, “Born in that most magical of cities, Savannah, I was allowed to run wild in that earthly paradise until I was nine; ideal for the boy who early decided he wanted to write.“
Mr. Aiken is buried in Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah and there is a bench by his grave with the words, Cosmos Mariner – Destination Unknown carved in it.
Legend has it that Mr. Aiken saw those words while reading a Savannah Newspaper’s daily list of port activity.
Cosmos Mariner – Destination Unknown.
Mr. Aiken left Savannah when he was 11 after a murder suicide took his parents.
I knew all that.
Then I read the line that I had missed.
After their parents’ deaths, the four children were adopted by Frederick Winslow Taylor and his wife Louise, their great-aunt.
Not just any Frederick Winslow Taylor but THE Frederick Winslow Taylor.
The man who invented the D handled 19 1/2 pound shovel.
The man who held a stop watch to workers and told them how hard they had to work.
The man who invented time motion studies.
The man who said, “In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.”
Mr. Aiken went from,” … that most magical of cities, Savannah, I was allowed to run wild in that earthly paradise until I was nine; ideal for the boy who early decided he wanted to write … to It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. “
And in the end came down to Cosmos Mariner – Destination Unknown.
‘I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .’
Fabulously fascinating.
No Haiku For You 