![\"'Glass](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/glassichthyosaur_amandaheath.jpg?resize=600%2C432&ssl=1\")
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[Image: “Glass Icthyosaur,” by Amanda Heath. I first From\u00a0whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Jostein Gaarder [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and<\/a>:<\/p>\n It is life that does the thinking all around us, forming with playful ease the connections our reason can only laboriously patch together piecemeal, and never to such kaleidoscopic effect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Robert Musil [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not from\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn’t understand it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Jostein Gaarder [ibid<\/em>.])<\/p>\n …and:<\/p>\n Recycling Center<\/strong><\/p>\n The labeled bins on the California hillside What mystery is inside a thing! If we peered And what if some don’t want to. What if some items All afternoon the bins are carried off
\nlearned of this project at Scientific American<\/span>‘s “Symbiartic” blog<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n
\ncatch the glint and quarter-glint of passing cars.
\nFamilies pull up with their interesting trash
\nand start unloading: Here, sweetheart,
\nthis goes over in Newspaper. The bundle
\nhits with a thud. Diet soda cans
\nspin almost noiselessly down, and the sun-
\npermitting bottles from a day’s pleasure
\nare tossed into Mixed Glass by the children
\nwho like to hear the smash, unknowable, chaotic,
\nas matter greets itself and starts to change.<\/p>\n
\ninto the bin, we could see it waiting there,
\ncould believe everything is alive and specific
\nand personal, could tell by the tilt of one
\nbottle against the next that it’s difficult
\nto be singular, to have identity, to keep
\nan outline safe in the terrors of space.
\nEven the child knows this. Bye, bottle! she shouts,
\ntossing it in; and the bottle lies there
\nin the two o\u2019clock position, temporarily itself,
\nbefore being swept into the destiny of mixture…<\/p>\n
\nin the piles of paper, the orange and blue
\nenvelopes from a magazine sweepstakes, numbers
\npressing through the cloudy windows
\nwith our names, some among those pale sheets curled
\nwith moisture, would rather stay as they are.
\nIt’s spring; we’ve thrown away mistakes—
\ntax forms, recipes, tennis-ball-sized
\ndrafts of poems—that which was blank
\nshall be made blank again—but what if
\nthat failed letter wants to be a failure,
\nnot go back to pulp, and thought…
\nOr across the parking lot, where light insists
\non changing the dull cans, a few cans don’t want
\nto be changed, though they should want to,
\nshouldn’t they, should want to be changed
\nby light, light which is called sweet reason,
\nhoneyed, spectra, magnitude, light that goes
\nfrom the parking lot looking helpless
\nthough it is matter that has been betrayed…<\/p>\n
\nby those who know about where things should go,
\nwho are used to the clatter the cans make,
\npouring out; and the families, who believed change
\nwould heal them are pulling away in their vans,
\nslightly embarrassed by that which refused…
\nThe bins fill again with hard substances,
\nthe hills bear down with their fugitive gold,
\nthe pampas grass bending low to protect
\nwhat was briefly certain and alive with hope.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n