Analysis of The Transcendental Journey



Life is but a journey.
And we are all its travelers.
Traveling to find our core Self
that unites in us the many.

The many selves within us.
Seeking to find their union.
Seeking to find wholeness.
The journey of the soul.

That journey never ceases.
It is without completion.
Outwards its form is physical.
A union of two bodies.

Two bodies with one purpose.
The purpose of fulfillment.
Fulfillment sought from outside.
Desiring to find wholeness.

Yet within such union
is desire of the soul.
To find the straight and narrow.
A path that is less traveled.

That path is inward leading.
Though many seek it outwards.
Seeking to find their true self.
In the image of The Other.

‘Twas  on such a wayward journey
I met you as a traveler.
You on the path going inwards.
With me looking only outwards.

I met you on the journey
in the middle of the path
where like Dante courting Beatrice
you gave me cause to pause.

To pause about life’s purpose.
And what it holds for each one.
The many lessons taught us.
With nature as our teacher.

To stop and ponder with you
the many joys of life:
How nature pours her blessings
on every single soul.

How Wisdom speaks with softness
and Knowledge walks with Grace.
And in those precious moments
we’ve learned of sadness too:

How Life and Death are partners.
How Lie disguises Truth.
How Pride mocks shy Humility.
How Anger battles Peace.

In the middle of the journey
we’ve talked of Love and Pain.
Of War and dismal Suffering.
Of Happiness and Peace.

We’ve praised the sky at sunrise
and hailed the moon at night.
We’ve danced the dance of lovers
and sung the song of dreams.

We’ve drunk the wine of sages
and boiled the bitter herbs.
We’ve bathed our skins in precious oils
and soaked our feet in myrrh.

We’ve chatted without ceasing.
And now we move again.
To face the path that lies ahead.
To weave the web of Life.

I met you on the journey.
That journey we call life.
We’ve moved in tandem as one.
Weaving the web of Life.

Life is but a journey.
To find ourselves in others.
To know that love is oneness.
The oneness of the soul.

Let this be the message.
The many masks our oneness.
Nature does grant us many.
To find in it our oneness.

Life is but a journey.
And we are all its travelers.
Traveling to find our core Self
that unites in us the many.


Scheme ABCA defg hexx dxxf egxx ijck akbj Axdx dedk lmxg dxxl bxan axin xxbx hxxk ixxm Amem Abdg xdad ABCA
Poetic Form Etheree  (29%)
Metre 111010 01111100 100111011 10101010 0101011 1011110 101110 010101 1101010 1101010 10111100 0101110 1101110 0101010 0101111 01001110 101110 1010101 1101010 0111110 1111010 1101110 1011111 00101010 11101010 11110100 1101101 11101010 1111010 0010101 111010100 111111 1101110 0111111 0101011 11011010 1101011 010111 1101010 1100101 1101110 010111 0011010 111101 1101110 110101 11110100 110101 00101010 111101 11010100 110001 110111 010111 1101110 010111 1101110 010101 111010101 0110101 1100110 011101 11011101 110111 1111010 110111 1101011 100111 111010 11001010 1111110 010101 111010 01011010 1011110 11011010 111010 01111100 100111011 10101010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,327
Words 513
Sentences 62
Stanzas 20
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 80
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 89
Words per stanza (avg) 21

About this poem

This poem was written by Karl C. Folkes in 1991 as he reflected on his marriage of 29 years at the time to the love of his life, his Asian wife of Rangoon, Burma, whom he compared to Dante’s Beatrice, as providing him with the impetus and the passion to savor lessons learned on the journey of life.

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Written on May 29, 1991

Submitted by karlcfolkes on September 15, 2021

Modified by karlcfolkes on June 02, 2024

2:34 min read
553

Karl Constantine FOLKES

Retired educator of Jamaican ancestry with a lifelong interest in composing poetry dealing particularly with the metaphysics of self-reflection; completed a dissertation in Children’s Literature in 1991 at New York University entitled: An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s ‘Liebe Mili’ (translated into English as “Dear Mili”), Employing Von Franzian Methodological Processes of Analytical Psychology. The subject of the dissertation concerned the process of Individuation. more…

All Karl Constantine FOLKES poems | Karl Constantine FOLKES Books

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