Hey Jason
Wake up way out west
Where time doth grow less
Not that you sleep a lot or too much
It’s later than you think out here in Georgia
Not that you think not right or too little
On the contrary I’m the one unclear on time and space
We’ve talked and talked and talked and talked and talked
And you know chat is my third favorite thing
After music and well you know
And getting high used to be an enthusiasm
For me but in old age I’ve cut way back
And still we’ve talked and talked and talked
In our offices in building H
At the Marlay in Decatur
And since you moved to California via Zoom
What kindness you have shown to me
What concern for my health and wellbeing
What gratitude I feel
What time you came to me saying
You that is I seem to be interested in ethics
Overhearing me speak of fact sincerity and respect
And we’ve tried to understand what matters
Of what it means for something to matter
And of what we should do and how we ought to act
And you’ve done most of the teaching
Though you credit me with some contribution
And we’ve discussed our psyches pathological
And the deontic and the axiological
And tried to orient ourselves toward appreciation
For the world is emphatically real
In its forces and its particles yes
But we are more confident you and I
Of the beautiful the true and the good
Than of the speed of light or the inverse square
Or the efficiency of mousetraps
And see more value in a tree or turd
Than in the cleverest invention
Or measurement most precise
And the age is ever darkening
With catastrophes in dwindling Fibonaccis
That is in inward spiral ever growing tighter
Starting with the agricultural revolution
But in earlier dim millenia past a species of ape
Gained the power to speak of futurity
And to speak in frank modality
And to understand reasons
And respond
And I wish I could devise an argument
Elegantly like you
But I’m a picker and a grinner and a singer
And a talker talker talker talker talker
And I’m a teacher I don’t say how excellent
And a poet I don’t say how excellent
And for a long time the worst sin a poet could commit
Was the fall into didacticism
But why should teaching in poetry be a sin
It’s good to help to learn
And it’s good to write a poem
I don’t say how excellent
So here’s a song about real things
The reality of value
The one life within us and abroad
And songs mostly express feelings
And some feelings come from facts
And some facts give us reasons
To act or believe or feel
So here’s a song about reasons in real things