Robt. ParkeHarrison
Garden of Selves (unmasking, a thought-experiment)
“All my life I’ve heard one makes many”
-Charles Olson-
This is what I hear here.
Someone sitting up and looking round.
Someone peeking.
And one makes many.
How many?
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is what the others are doing.
When only one looks up as if to speak.
I am hearing “tend the garden”
I am hearing “heteroglossia”*
I am reading “every on their own Babel”*
Why are the many huddled in boxes, like seedpods?
Perhaps shriveling, or nearly dead?
What prompted the one?
I hear here one prompting many.
I hear the call “Rise up!”
A voice sounds singular.
Which is not the case.
A person is a chorus.
Something else pressures for soloists.
What if each their cadenza, in unison?
Who then, what then, how would we be?
This is what I see in this sea.
And why so many-yous asleep?
How we tranquilize and put under
Person – what have you done?
The space of a world we call web
is made for a show of hands
nothing is not connected…
Wake.
This is what I hear here.
Wake up.
You are not alone.
You are one many,
singularly plural.
Tend to the garden of selves.
Know the manufacturer’s labels on every packet of seed.
When it is yours you have chosen and planted
look up
join the chorus
shouting down the mummer’s call
N Filbert 2012
*M.M. Bakhtin’s concept of the plurality of utterances and personhood
*from great British linguist J.R. Firth
All my Words are Silent 
The awakened one ~ looks bewildered. He is middle aged, dressed for work, confused. Used. The selves appear identical; the singular plurality? Interchangeable, disposable? Looks more
Man-santo than Thoreau-ean. How can seeds be manufactured? Patented. Dig deep.
Thanks for the thought experiement ~ nice work!
check a seed-packet…so much engineering going on these days! 🙂
my ideaquery related around choosing/selecting selves among the very many we are, or an awake awareness of our many selves?
selves formed by wounding, trauma, desire, externals, temperament and so on…tracing the genetics of the various selves we are?
Beautifully weaved.
thank you very much for reading, taking the time, and encouraging as well.
you are so very welcome. I have found my blogging experience enriched by the sharing and receiving of comments and observations rather than just clicking the like button.
for certain.