An Entropic Eulogy in Three I Ching Hexagrams
Donald Beagle
Ching: “The Well.” When water is gone, the well is only a dark hole
in dried ground. When air is fouled storms will explode to bomb-cyclones,
fire-tornadoes, derechos. When glaciers melt oceans surmount their
unsuspecting shores. As plants lift water from the earth with fibrous roots
families have rooted their lives in forests now burning to deserts. This arid
fate awaits those cities of fools denying science or scorning wisdom.
Ting: “The Cauldron.” Roiling round our planet the fearsome cauldron churns
recoiling over earth as life unfurls its rituals. The cauldron’s heart beats
in a slowing entropic spin, engulfing weak and hapless lives within; the lives
submerged in searing, deafening din. Hieronymus’ Dragon erupts wherever
wildfires flare, while Blake’s Tyger roars with anger through the whirlwind of
a fire tornado burning the world to dust around us, as a cauldron swirls.
K’un: “Oppression (Exhaustion).” A lake is baked, a desiccated skein.
This dead lake-bed in the far west is the warning of dire times, the future
of oppressive heat from our atmosphere stressed with CO2’s exhaustion.
A fool will ridicule “fake news” claiming it is not happening, even
in summers too torrid for jets to fly from Arizona airports, or as 500-year
floods horrify every five years. The icecaps liquify until they die.
The Science
This poem explores the themes of three I Ching hexagrams (Exhaustion, The Well, The Cauldron) to juxtapose imagery of environmental degradation and destruction as a descent from the order of life and ritualistic experience to the disorder of climatological extremities.
The Poet
Donald Beagle is an American poet whose published collections have won multiple awards, from the University of Michigan's Hopwood Award in 1977 to Wake Forest University's Gail O'Day Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry in 2018.
Next poem: Circle of Chaos by Antara Dasgupta