This is at least the second time I’ve used “Into Each Life” as a triple-acrostic spine. Curious readers may find another one in my November 2014 archives. Fun fact: Georgia O’Keeffe is featured in the other one as well.

Into Each Life

Introspection keeps us healthy. Won’t you stick around A. Weil
Notwithstanding automation he’s alive as you and I
Thanatopsis is no way of circumnavigating grief
Onomatopœia pops to hasten us to G. O’Keeffe

“Won’t you stick around A. Weil” is my first Bad Pun of the day. Andrew Weil is a highly respected and knowledgeable expert on Health. His discussions on nutrition go right down to the chemical-interaction level. He is a valuable resource, but is not the easiest read in the world, because the subject matter itself is complex; but I think anyone serious about their health would benefit from hearing what he says.

Georgia O’Keeffe is a valuable resource as well. She lived one of the fullest lives possible for a woman born in her time, and she left us some incredible images. One of the big thrills of my life is that I was once in the same room with her and Ansel Adams.

If you find this poem, this page, and my intentions hard to fathom, it is not your fault. The first line, pun notwithstanding, is fairly straightforward, and the second line, “Notwithstanding” notwithstanding, isn’t too obtuse. But “Thanatopsis is no way of circumnavigating grief”? Thanatopsis means “a meditation upon death.” Circumnavigating means “sail or travel completely around a thing, especially the world.” What I try to say in this line is thinking about and expressing philosophical notions on the subject of Death is not going to help anyone deal with the grief associated with a particular death. It may be a way of avoiding that grief. And I think it’s important to give grief its proper station, in proper moderation.

The last line has an element of word-playfulness to it. When I say “Onomatopœia pops” I am exploiting a loophole in our language rules to make Onomatopœia itself onomatopoetic. At the same time, my use of “automation” in line 2 finds a faint, twisted echo in “Onomatopœia pops.” and the line as a whole, “Onomatopœia pops to hasten us to G. O’Keeffe” carries an implication of synaesthesia, which is “the production of a sense impression relating to one sense by stimulation of another sense.” hearing light, seeing sound, smelling touch are all synaesthetic phenomena. Don’t Georgia’s flowers pop? 🙂