Fifth World—A Poetic Journey: Creation Tales to Modern Musings

By Benn Welch

From the cave paintings of Lascaux to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, from the Moai of Rapa Nui to the totem poles of North America, and from the Giza pyramids to the colossal Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, humans have long used unspoken communication that crosses the barriers of language and culture.

From our ancestors visual acumen to the verbose musings of their descendants, a long journey has transpired. We have only found different portals from which to view, realized our view is surely restricted (Woman Who Fell from the Sky), or simply removed more clutter from a door that needs no key (There Is a Door). Now that we, the modern progeny, can posit diverse and varied marks with standard order and fixed traits and to understand their hidden meanings (The Lost Book), we may, through literature, visit a cave painting or stand in awe before a Teotihuacan. With poetry we make these journeys in record time, with bold imagery and clarity. For the walls and ceilings of life, poetry gives us a great paintbrush.

Presenting a seekers journey, this poetry collection explores ancient creation tales, Cajun culture, and contemporary reflections on lifes momentous events.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491792049

Benn Welch

Benn Welch has been an educator, seminarian, horticulturist, and world traveler. He grew up on a ranch in coastal Louisiana, and his love of poetry began in childhood. He currently lives in Southern California, where he continues writing and planning the next journey.

Book preview

Fifth World—A Poetic Journey

Creation Ta les to Modern Musings

Copyright © 2016 benn welch.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Illustrations by Steven Olson

Photography by Bryan Wolff

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-9205-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9204-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016906751

iUniverse rev. date: 05/12/2016

Contents

Introduction

Illustrations

Raven with Sun

Seeker in a Maze

Lost Tabby Mind

Cajun Cottage

Totem Pole

Book of Creations

The Fifth World

Sometime in the Yesterdays

Woman Who Fell from the Sky

The Song of the Gods

Book of the Seekers

A Theological Maze

The Quest

The Lost Book

There is a Door

The Source

The Revel in Life

A Stone in the Streambed

One

Book of Laughter and Logic

True Confessions (and False)

roll the dice

Who Wrote the Book

What if We Never Left the Garden

The Greatest Reward

Why Beauty is Missing

Today’s Life’s Lesson

Magnificentia

Book of Memory’s Gallery

A Different Kind of Cowboy

Gone from the Bayou

Lizabette

In Memory’s Gallery

Elegy for Greg

The Greg Totem Pole

Afterword

Glossary

For

STEVE

and

JAMES

JEANETTE

GREG

Do not be content with the stories of others.

Unfold your own myth.

- Rumi

Introduction

On this poetic journey some creation tales are retraced to see metaphoric truths that have always been there for the seeker. Throughout history many native peoples relied upon descriptive explanations, both simple and complex, of their existence. Growing up on Louisiana’s gulf coast I was early aware of the Chitimacha, Houma, Coushatta, and Atakapa native tribes around me, and of my family’s contacts with some of them. In re ~viewing some tales from indigenous peoples you’ll find some observations from which to draw insight. (Book of Creations)

Traversing Louisiana’s Cajun bayou country will show a variety of life experience, as we look at the descendants of the refugees exiled in 1775 from Acadie in French Canada. This is my birthright, inheriting from this chronicle by both nature and nurture. Food and language are spiced and peppered from both native and immigrant cultures in a wonderful repas a manger (good food) and pervasive patois (dialect). (Book of Memory’s Gallery)

Sandwiched between these two cultural icons are modern musings about the now in which we find ourselves. Contemporary man finds an easier path of looking outward, setting life’s course from this judgment. Looking inward, assessing the thoughts about what is seen, may be a healthier and more beneficial option. Along this journey, much like a genealogical chart of human nature, look at your experiences perhaps finding personal truths that may have been overlooked or forgotten. (Book of the Seekers) Take the poetic journey where laughter acts as a medicinal, and look at the logic, the sensibleness, of life’s experiences, ordinary and extraordinary, saddening and sublime. (Book of Laughter and Logic)

On this rhythmical trek through the language of origins to modern musings, be the seeker you were meant to be and find inspiration to unfold your story, if only to yourself.

Book of Creations

Ravenwithsundisc01.jpg

Raven with Sun

Dark was conquered by Raven’s flight . . .

The Fifth World

A Maya Creation Tale

In This Beginning . . .

There was only infinite Sky above

and the waters of a vast Ocean below.

The space between was void, empty

except for voices thundering in echo.

For the gods were conversing, the wish

for creatures was their unending desire,

but with vapory Sky and watery Ocean

their creation would firm Earth require.

So the creators spoke into the mist

clearing the cloud-hovering Skies,

calling across the churning Ocean

for the drowned land to rise.

First World

For this new Earth they created animals

in forms and colors