The Pluto Factor

My grandpa's had an influence beyond a great degree,
For mother's dad, like Jung has said, was potent as could be.
He and his wife – formidable – tough were such pioneers –
Had they not been, they'd die, or move, or drown their lives in beer.

I'd seen the downside right enough, “pig parent” it's been called,
Where we pick up our silliness, our version of the fall;
But I'd not seen, with all the mess, a factor which I'd felt:
His influence was filtered as my mom ’fore God had knelt.

She had a strong aesthetic side – loved books and poetry;
Played music to amuse herself; sang Christmas songs with me;
She learned of art, to understand what she had missed at home;
And took us to art festivals; taught us of Greece and Rome.

As pressure from that quarter dies, for me in her last days,
I feel permission to relax, exhibit artful ways.
I asked you, Lord, “How does one shift the right-brain to the left,
So what I know the ‘feeling way’ comes out and takes a breath?”

You had me change my inner talk from “I don't know” to “do”–
And you were right, I was aware, I felt no longer fool;
But little use it was to me to know I understood
Emotively, unconsciously, like motor under hood.

I wanted to see clearly what that “factor X.” in there
Was saying to my thoughts, and words, and actions – then compare
Direction it was taking me, or letting me walk through,
With what I knew important was in what I want to do.

It took a month, then out it popped in notes which I had made,
“Your grandpa had an influence on you, a highway laid
From him through mom to you throughout your walk upon this globe,
But it was filtered through your mom's aesthetic side of gold”.

He saw no use for poetry, a monotone was he;
'Twas words and concepts where he lived, with bugs and surgery;
Mom was a gentle person who would moonbeams paddle down,
Just after singing in the boat at sunset, far from town.

She taught me Wordsworth's view of age – Ulysses’ twinkling rocks;
She opened Keats and Browning, and how love was counted lots;
George Elliott, the Bronte girls, with Dickens’ Copperfield
Were read to us to open up, the light of art to yield.

So there it was – permission to go down that road in life,
Aesthetically go out and play, support my kids and wife.
That is a tree which draws resource of insights from the brook,
Transforming them to fruit to make a place where folks could look –

And see another way to view their lives and thus be free –
Like “shoelace tied” (performance art); and “Safe-way”  (cut through need);
Twelve novels made; and Poems up on website from my trips
Through “Cancer-land, and “giver-land” – new life because of it.

The slides, and films, and audio, the darkroom, and the shop,
I see it now – guitar and song – aesthetically I'm hot –
Perhaps not hot in quality, but out from me there flows
A flood of right-brain content, it's surprising what it knows!

Like Graham said this other stuff will drop away some day
Like chips of rock as sculptor let that girl come out and play;
The middle stage of any art is there, but not quite right,
But then it pops to clarity – with polish it gets bright.

Now left-brain sees what right-brain knows, has known these many years,
Like kids returning after Blitz-protection’s parting tears;
The influence of inner-voice and knowledge carries on,
Less tripped up now by consciousness – words married with the song.

I feel relief, conflicted less, I comprehend my part –
My present and my future hold potential that is art.
What comes to mind, my comment that “administration's art”
In corporate development – that gave a place to start.

Like Butterfield in “History of Science” book has said,
Our ornaments of thought hang on a Christmas tree as led
Until the box of things that don't quite fit gets in the way,
Then, “poof”, new tree (or “paradigm”), all fits, we laugh and say –

“How could I not have seen that shape, here, right before my eyes?”
(Though other folks don't catch on quick, and sometimes we're despised);
Soon everyone is looking back and laughing – blind they'd been,
New box of things that do not fit, in corner then is seen.

And so our cyclic lives move on, new life displaces old;
New freedom in our later years makes some of us now bold
To “sail beyond the sunset” like Ulysses did before,
And see what other goodies life for us still has in store.

The planet Pluto (once defined as planet, now a rock),
Was found because it's influence was felt on planet stock;
It pulled the other planets from their orbit just a bit –
Aesthetics of my mother in my life pulled just like it.

It was not seen, but it was felt deep down inside of me;
The conscious part of grandpa's life was plain enough to see;
But I got pulled a bit off course, a pattern I could sense;
Now that I see it's cause quite clear, I feel I can go hence.

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