Eternal Recurrence

by Peter Saint-Andre

2014-04-15

I'm still struggling mightily with finding my voice on this Nietzsche project - not trying to represent exactly what Nietzsche wrote (which is notoriously slippery anyway), but providing my perspective on his ideas in a way that does justice to what I see as the core truth in his texts. Plus huge questions are swirling in my head about whether I can pull this off philosophically and poetically!

Nevertheless, I'm going to try. As my colleague Adam Brault says: "What the heck. Why not?" :-)

Over the weekend, I wrote the first draft of the first poem for Songs of Zarathustra. There's no guarantee it will survive my usual self-editing process, but here it is anyway...

Eternal Recurrence

What if
I've lived this hour, this day, this life
Before
And I
Must live them yet again, not once
But more
And more,
Until every experience
Repeats,
Recurs,
And doubles back a million times
Or more.

A curse!
And yet if it must be, what if
I bless
This fact
As much as if it were my choice,
Not less.
The less
I treat necessity as fate
The more
I love
The life I live, and live the life
I bless.

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