Robert E. Wood – Thora And The Philosophers: The Early Years


 

Thora and Aristotle

No footprint mars
her lunar wondering,
the first philosophy.


 

Thora and Socrates

She knows the name
of what she points to
even the moon by day.

The sun is too hot
she says
when it shines in her eyes.

The questioning begins.


 

Thora and Plato

Eating an ice cream cone
slowly she remembers
the sky’s geometry
that sweet cold music.


 

Thora and Ptolemy

She sets and rises
travels in bright circles,
makes harmony of carnival.

Run swiftly, swiftly,
horses of the carousel.


 

Deep Autumn: Thora and Basho

A leaf drops
from the oak.

She wonders
if the tree
is broken.


 

Writer’s Statement on Beauty

There are terrible beauties as Yeats has shown us, but the beauty of a child’s first exploration of the world renews us all. My Thora poems began when I heard a speaker quote Aristotle as saying, “Philosophy begins in wonder.” I wrote the first of these poems on a notepad in a hotel room in Chicago.


 

Robert E. Wood teaches in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech and received a PhD in English at the University of Virginia. His poetry has appeared in such journals as Canopic Jar, Southern Humanities Review, South Carolina Review, Quiddity, Blue Fifth Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Poets and Artists, and Prairie Schooner. His chapbooks, Gorizia Notebook and Sleight of Hand, were published by Finishing Line Press. His book of ekphrastic poetry, The Awkward Poses of Others, published by WordTech, was awarded Author of the Year in Poetry by the Georgia Writers Association. The anthology On Occasion: Four Poets, One Year (Poetry Atlanta Press) contains his work together with that of fellow writers Karen Head, Blake Leland, and JC Reilly.