Exercise one: The data do show

A. For each writing, what is the phenomenon described? Can it be rendered in a word or phrase? This is to say that each is about something--a noema, an X, an it.

B. Is each writing "a direct description of our experience [of that something] as it is"? This is to say, or claim, that each is a phenomenological description comprised of both the it and how one experiences that it.

C. Each writing as an it in itself is an object of intentional gaze, or could be; each is a phenomenon which can itself be described, both noema and noesis. Which, 1 or 2 below, is more clearly a writing/text/work as phenomenological description?

. . . Just to get things started.

SAMPLE #1

{BEGIN WRITING}

The last poem

Years and years and years past
I would write a gift,
and thought it shared
the love at Christmas.

Now and now and now at last
through the years I sift,
and think to share
our love at Christ's mass.

Then and then and then repast
I would mine eyes uplift,
And pray forgive--
self love this boat's mast.

But again, again, again it's no.
Not my love nor ours this journey takes.
But of the One that gives without the for,
And all the pretty words forsakes.

{END WRITING}

SAMPLE #2

{BEGIN WRITING}

Thud

This always happens. My writing thuds. Here is "a deconstruction."

The last poem

[This is the last poem for me or anyone in concert with where I am re a spiritual outlook. See the last line of the poem.]

Years and years and years past
I would write a gift,
and thought it shared
the love at Christmas.

[Christmases ago I used to write poems as gifts to family, friends, and loved ones. I thought it showed or shared my love for them. I thought that anyway. I suspect in these lines that I was wrong, in years past.]

Now and now and now at last
through the years I sift,
and think to share
our love at Christ's mass.

[Later, after reflection but then recent affirmation, I thought we could join in love and joy in the spirit of Christ's birth, life, and death. Getting back to true religion, or the truth in religion.]

Then and then and then repast
I would mine eyes uplift,
And pray forgive--
self love this boat's mast.

[Failing the above, I then thought it was myself I had to save; therefore, I found strength in petitionary prayer. The word repast is here mostly for rhyme, but it has a feeling of after a supper, perhaps Christ's last and the mass. That is after having gotten and become disillusioned with religion.]

But again, again, again it's no.
Not my love nor ours this journey takes.
But of the One that gives without the for,
And all the pretty words forsakes.

[But the lesson is clear, after learning it again and again. Life is a journey guided by the One (God, gods, ground of being, etc.). And for him or her, there are no words no matter how pretty, nor does s/he speak; and s/he is in the business of being, not for-giving, or for giving, or forgiving. Big play here on forgive from the previous stanza.]

PS Not "Dante's Prayer," but sort of.

[This is an allusion to a nice lyric. The words are available for those interested to look them up--and people did, unfortunately without understanding the above first. Since this poem here is from me and I have personalized it with a postscript, it is both an explanation for my silence in the past few years(no pretty words) along with the hope that we can remember each other with the kinds of love Dante's Prayer talks about, as well as that which I hope I have expressed here, in a last poem. Conclusion: We are all a part of the One!]

A final note. Some thought I did not write the poem and they tried to find it somewhere. For those and others maybe, I wrote the poem standing in line at the local post office just before Christmas. Never without a notebook, I thought what better thing to do as I stood waiting to post my modest attempt to show I cared in the traditional way, Christmas cards.

Now, don't you think the poem better than the lengthy explanation and context for its composition? I know, I know. And it's OK. I am used to it.

THUD
{END WRITING}