Friends on a lawn, in a woods,
on a sandy seaside beach,
in spite of roots, stony ground,
irritating ants, itches,
and scrap-thieving gulls,
blankets are spread and
a Rorschach of conviviality
plops down, unfurls, expands.
Friends, both old and young,
each one both young and old.
An afternoon of unfolding – – – – –
they have gathered for revelation.
Baskets open, they share pleasures,
cheeses passed around, cured meat,
good bread, a little wine, enough
to rouse six robust intellects.
Each has ingested a library over years,
not to regurgitate but to digest
a philosophical cuisine, menus chosen,
arguments chewed, some points taken,
others points reduced to sham by reason.
Talking, they ping, they pong, they stop,
go quiet, go deep, then pun,
a bawdy joke, more laughter.
Edgar notices the droop in Evelin’s blouse
as she reaches for more chips and salsa.
The chemistry of pulchritude
Evelin notices Edgar noticing.
She answers with a double-edged smile.
Tired, subtly alert, they bask
in the back and forth luxury of the day.
The sun sets gently beneath the trees,
beyond the waves, behind suburban fences,
jaws tired from the manual labor of the mouth,
affluent minds at ease seeking rest in silence.
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This poem was inspired by reading two books on the Roman poet Lucretius ( ca. 99 – 55 b.c.e) and his long poem On the Nature of Things. The first was the The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius (2007), nineteen essays from various scholars regarding Lucretius’ effort to translate the Greek philosopher Epicurus into the Latin world, an Epicurean evangelist if you will. The other was the Introduction to an English translation of the poem (1977) by Frank O. Copley in which he sees the pleasure of a picnic as a fitting symbolic metaphor for the philosophy of Epicurus.
The rediscovery of the poem in 1417 and impact of the poem on our modern sensibility is presented in Stephen Greenblatt’s book The SWERVE: How the World Became Modern (2011).