REN DESCARTES

Body of honey in a night of bees, Seems sweet to the sleeper as he dreams. A whirlwind rules the world without; A demon rules the world within: Self is the echo of a doubt. What path Should he follow? What life should he live? Sheltered from the world and all its wars escartes listens for an answer in a stove!warmed room; iscovers nothing, e"cept a silence inside a solitude. As if the crowd at Babel had thrown the tower down And dug a tunnel to a necropolis of souls #e will reduce his world to its foundations, Will build from pluralities of $argon, a unity %f thought and so transmute cold lead to golden ore. &he customs of men, the virtues of plants, &he motions of stars are no more altered by his words &han sunlight is by what it shines upon. 'od(s ghost recedes and the spirit of truth &a)es the *reator(s place. At last, all nature(s doors Are open to escartes( reasoning mind. A blac)smith forging shac)les for himself, %r a navigator in a storm whose bro)en compass Suddenly swings north; #ercules at his crossroad %r %dysseus at his palace door, escartes opens &he volume of his soul wherein each reader Will find a method for the mind to trac) A lonely path between the void and 'od. Were the dreams he describes &he dreams as he dreamed them? #e fi"es their images in the chemicals of memory And, li)e a detective, loo)s for clues. +n a courtyard at the *ollege de ,a -leche #e searches for the certainty he(s missed. .hantoms force themselves against him. #is right side is so wea) he must turn sideways +n order to go forward. A wind pivots him

%n his left foot in a di//y spiral &oward an entranceway he cannot reach. -earing he might fall with any step he see)s refuge +n the college chapel but can hardly move. &he image of a man appears before him. escartes e"tends no greeting but when he hesitates As if to pay his respects, the risen wind drives #im closer to the chapel door, he sees +n the middle distance another figure Who says there is a 0onsieur 1. waiting With a gift: strange, round fruit -rom a foreign land. Suddenly, he is surrounded By a familiar crowd all standing tall And firm on their feet. #e is stooped and dodders As if on the crumbling edge of a precipice. A stab of unimagined pain wa)es him &o the reali/ation a $inn has seduced him. #e prays for 'od to preserve him from the evils %f his dream. &here is nothing 'od can do 2"cept sort out bad from good and hurl down &hunderbolts on unregenerate sinner(s heads. escartes )nows his own dreams prove him guilty #owever innocent he may loo) in other(s eyes. After hours brooding on the good and evil of this world #e returns to sleep only to be shoc)ed awa)e By a thunderclap. #is room is full of dancing flames, Angels( swords or demons( tongues or bright points Whirling within the confines of his eyes. #e blin)s and they(re still there. +f what he sees +s outside himself and real then he can read them %nly as a threat from an angry 'od. +f what he sees is inside his mind &hen a curtain falls over all the ob$ects in his world. *an his thoughts color everything? &o test the theory his dreams are his own #e opens and closes his eyes again and again. #e finds each spar) is painted %n the lidded lenses of his mind. #e(s in control and can sleep with the )ind %f calm only a rationalist can )now. What his dreams lose in mystery they regain +n clarity. What(s divine does not intrude

+nto the world as easily as his delusions do. #is third dream now begins with no frightening 2dge at all. #e finds the courage an e"plorer needs. #is self!assurance springs from fear(s foundations So that even as he sleeps he can interpret what he dreams. &he dictionary at his elbow that comes and goes +s something he can use, a compendium %f all the things a man may )now. &he anthology of poems he thumbs through 3epresents philosophy(s words wed to a music %nly intellect can hear, for latent +n the minds of men li)e spar)s of flame +n an unstruc) flint the seeds of wisdom Wait to flare and bloom. &he poem #e sees first and the one a stranger recommends Are messages meant $ust for him. 'ood advice for the tas) at hand: 1o life without discomfort, no path Without obstructions, no hollows, no pro$ections. *omplete and self!contained, boundlessly finite, +nfinitely limited, smooth as a globe escartes Sits in lucid $udgement on himself .ondering the difference between yes and no. When he wa)es he continues to analy/e #is present, his future and his past. &he strange, round fruit the stranger brought to him 3epresents the charms of solitude. &he wind .ushing him toward the chapel is the demon #e must van4uish in order to find 'od. &he thunderclap is the voice of truth &hat ta)es his breath as a possession So that every sound he mouths is its own echo. Armed, at last, with the discoveries of sleep escartes is ready for the $ourney he must ma)e -rom sealed room to une"tended ego and beyond. 5nli)e the curious who scavenge -or discarded treasures they never find And unli)e dar)!dwellers who have lost &he use of their eyes escartes sees #is best direction. #e begins with simple, Self!evident things: the cadence of breath,

&he rhythm of thought. 2ach intuition, %ne lin) of many in a chain of deductions. %ne thin)s. %ne e"ists. A triangle +s bounded by $ust three sides; A sphere, by a single surface. #is mind moves Step by step to a comprehensible comple"ity At the threshold of faith. &here, When his e"perience admits A greater perfection than he can claim, #e ma)es his first discovery. As a river %f stars flowing above a steeple *leanses the dar) in the moon(s absence So escartes( words ta)e wing With the wayward planets &hrough heaven(s circling houses &o sound the triumph of the birth of 'od. As mountains have valleys; As the sea, a shore, the mind must have +ts architect. +f each thought confirms &here is a thin)er then his e"istence Begs the 4uestion of all creation. 'od is nature and nature, 'od: &he effect is li)e the cause. Bric) by bric) escartes rebuilds the world. #is body can come bac) and with it &he deceptive senses, though the evidence &hey bear must be proved in reason(s crucible. #aving tasted the tree(s fruit, escartes becomes his own constructor. #e loo)s past the world(s disguises &o the geometry implicit within immortal eyes. Born to eat the simplest bread, he toils &o bring forth thistles from the dust. As a surgeon subdues affection Before treating a patient he might not save escartes disenchants his dream. #is ga/e abstracts awe from heaven. #is hands lift love(s veil to reveal A s)ull beneath his beloved(s face. &he five fold bond that fetters other men 1o longer tethers him. #e holds a cow(s heart &o his ear to listen for his own blood(s echo,

&riangulates the sunlight a million watery prisms 3efract into a rainbow, )nows a snowfla)e(s 5ni4ue symmetry might not taste the same to every tongue *an he sense what the world would loo) li)e &o an angel? %r is his mind a stunted ghost ,oc)ed inside a gland? +s he a thin)ing thing, An embodied creature or a brute machine Without a dream? At $ust that point Where intellect meets body, escartes( thought issolves into a dissonance of shape and space. ,i)e a hanged man hovering in air, Soul inhabits body as weight pervades the limbs. %nly a geometer perceives the world -or what it is: a whirling sea %f measurable bits, 4uanta without 4ualities. escartes sees nothing but the web &he spider spins. &he red of a rose +s inside him and not intrinsic to the flower. &omorrow, in his eyes, a marigold 0ay be a violet or a sparrow, a canary. #e cuts the tapered end of a dog(s heart &o test with his fingertip the living strength %f each contraction. When no more blood can e"it -rom the beast, whose life is forfeit &o escartes( careful )nife, its wor) is done. iligent as a bee amidst flowers on a roc)y slope escartes flies on perfectly transparent wings &hrough a world inhabited by machines that purr And wind!up dolls that breed. ismembered -ragments fuse within the furnace of his intellect 0utating barnyard creature into herds %f griffins, minotaurs and chimeras no evil *an eviscerate or slaughtered innocence appease. &he eternal silence of infinite space oes not frighten him. #e finds peace +n mortal wisdom. &he wa" from the honey comb +s hard, heavy with the scent of ravished flowers 5ntil fire changes it from what it was, &o a translucent, odorless li4uid $ust as surely Wa" as he is the escartes he used to be

When he soldiered for .rince 0aurice of %range. We cannot )now the terror he felt he must Be sheltered from. 5nafraid of iron shot %r swift thrusts of steel, he could not abide 'alileo(s censure by the *hurch. 2verything he(d written until that time #e cast aside for fear the .ope would interdict #is vision of a spinning, circling world And so force him to dismantle for a second time All he(d built from his physics down to his first doubt. &his is the escartes we must not $udge Who rearranged the patterns of his thought And )illed the courage a soldier needs &o ma)e way for a world he could not change. #e lives well who lives well out of it. 0as)ed as an actor he mounts the stage &o mime these truths before a 3osicrucian crowd. #e spent his last winter teaching manners &o a cold )ing(s daughter who forced him -rom his bed each Swedish dawn So he might greet the harvester of men &hat much sooner. A healthy man +s a cloc) that )nows the time it tells, A creature who when thirsty drin)s When hungry eats, when unsatisfied reams itself a feast. escartes, #aving lain abed (til noon his whole life long, 0ust have )nown he never should have risen &o teach that girl her lessons. +n laughter, he finds sadness; in tears, $oy: -or meaning resides not in the sign But in the mind. +n death, at last, &he world(s great boo) swings wide for him. %ut of the perfect circle of his repose *ame a new way of shaping space; A path past 2uclid(s where tran4uil .arallelograms made peace with motion. As a bird flies from branch to branch #e flew from calculation to calculation 5ntil he grew tired of mathematics. &he answers to the problems escartes posed Are in the 4uestions he never as)ed.

,i)e 6epler(s feverish infant son #is own child died before the age of five. An illegitimate, much!doted on daughter, She was an inhabitant of a world he(d lost, An emblem of the grief he couldn(t bear &he final proof of what was wrought inside his s)ull When nature forged for him a self distinct -rom the no man(s land he(d dreamed. -reed from the confines of oracular sleep, #e elaborates a future for man)ind. As moonbeams smooth each child(s arrival, Age wine, nurture plants, season timber, 3eturn cadavers to their ashes, 1atural light leads him deeper and deeper +nto the mirrored labyrinth %f icy reasons infinite reflections.