"Poems of Death: Time for Eternity" Now An Ebook on Apple iBooks

By: Jim Hilgendorf
 
EL CERRITO, Calif. - Jan. 12, 2016 - PRLog -- "Poems of Death: Time for Eternity", one of the latest books of author James Hilgendorf, is now available as a digital e-book from Apple iBooks.

The title of the book comes from "Democratic Vistas", a great work by the great American poet, Walt Whitman, in which he wrote:

"In the future of these States must arise poets immenser far, and make great poems of death."

By "poems of death", Whitman was referring not simply to poetry about death, but to a broader spiritual awakening that he hoped would take place all across America.

Of his own time, Whitman wrote:

“Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States.  Genuine belief seems to have left us.  The underlying principles of the States are not honestly believed in, nor is humanity itself believed in.  What penetrating eye does not everywhere see through the mask?  The spectacle is appalling.  We live in an atmosphere of hypocrisy throughout.  The men believe not in the women, nor the women in the men.  A scornful superciliousness rules in literature... A lot of churches, sects, etc., the most dismal phantasms I know, usurp the name of religion... The depravity of the business classes of our country is not less than has been supposed, but infinitely greater...”

Still, Whitman kept faith in the future.  He held a belief, sometimes reduced to a dim hope, that there would arise in the future a group or class of men and women who would lead the way to a truer America - an America that was, above all, grounded in new spiritual realities.

The spiritual basis for the true fulfillment of America was a necessary he felt.  It had nothing to do with the past.  It was something new.

“There will soon be no more priests”, he wrote.  “Their work is done.  They may wait awhile...perhaps a generation or two...dropping off by degrees.  A superior breed shall take their place...the gangs of kosmos and prophets en masse shall take their place.  A new order shall arise and they shall be the priests of man, and every man shall be his own priest.  The churches built under their umbrage shall be the churches of men and women.  Through the divinity of themselves shall the kosmos and the new breed of poets be interpreters of men and women and of all events and things.  They shall find their inspiration in real objects today, symptoms of the past and future...They shall not deign to defend immortality or God or the perfection of things or liberty or the exquisite beauty and reality of the soul.  They shall arise in America and be responded to from the remainder of the earth.”

"Poems of Death: Time for Eternity" is a collection of short pieces and reflections by the author on the emerging dream of a new America.

He writes:

"The old dreams of America are dying.

"These were white-washed fences, and movies where you never saw anyone with a different looking face.  Flags waving in the wind, sweetness everywhere, good guys and bad guys, America forever, blessed by God on high, and dreams of onward and upward, forever and ever.

"Our dreams have died the death of the old America.

"They were only for a moment anyway.  Blotches upon the canvas of a tribal mentality, visions of superiority and dominion.

"America is reborn in black ghettoes, on Indian reservations, in Nigerian enclaves, tides of Russian emigres, turbaned Sikhs and Arab tunics, Vietnamese restaurants, Chinese fish shops, and Mexican burritos.

"They come from out of the four corners of the universe.  Nowhere has there ever been such a gathering.

"We thought they would all meld into a big pot, American as apple pie, learning the old ways, speaking sparkling English, and merging their identity into the identity of the great white way.

"But, no, they are their own sort of blooms.  They carry with them strains of melodies and rhythms of words that forge a cacophony of sounds and visions and feelings unheralded by the narrow concepts of our ancestors.

"They have come from out of all eternity.

"They are here for one reason: to bring to fruition the true dream of America.

"They appear now, all over America.

"And with them, in their midst, the Buddha appears.  The Buddha of eternal life, opening the way.

"He appears now on a busy corner, a hawker selling morning newspapers, replete with the good news.

"Or coiling the hair of beauty shop customers, the Buddha spreads the word face to face, woman to woman, block by block, their gossip traveling just under the speed of light.

"The time has come.

"Opening each heart, opening the heart of the universe itself, one by one, person to person.  Caring for one person, spreading rings of compassion, opening up time and space.

"Not presidents, not movie stars, not moguls and magnates, but ordinary men and women, you and I, the unknowns, the undiscovered, the unrecognized, now taking the stage and the limelight of history.

"What we extend to the hearts of others rebounds in silent ripples to Uranus and Pluto and unknown planets beyond.

"The true dream of America is emerging."

"Poems of Death: Time for Eternity" is now available on Apple iBooks.

James Hilgendorf is a filmmaker, speaker, and the author of ten non-fiction books.  For more information on the author and his books, and to engage him as a speaker, visit his website at http://www.jameshilgendorf.org.
End
Source:Jim Hilgendorf
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Tags:Buddhism, Walt Whitman, American Renaissance
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Location:El Cerrito - California - United States
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