Troy Camplin holds a Ph.D. in humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas. He has taught English in middle school, high school, and college, and is currently taking care of his children at home. He is the author of Diaphysics, an interdisciplinary work on systems philosophy; other projects include the application of F.A. Hayek’s spontaneous order theory to ethics, the arts, and literature. His play “Almost Ithacad” won the PIA Award from the Cyberfest at Dallas Hub Theater.

Transcendence

Descending from the mountains, down the plain,

Into the valley, I have found a cave

To live in and to contemplate my pain

And joy, the love and strife designed to save

Me from my selfishness, to be reborn.

Do not mistake my constant strong desire –

The animal is transformed to adorn

The unity whose friction brings the fire

Of love out of apparent fleshly lust,

Erecting a true temple to embrace

The higher life of love and joy and trust

That life will lead me right and bring me grace.

When I want to make love to you it’s so

Our spirits can emerge and merge and grow.

Made, and Made Anew

The stones are worn with even, weary waves –

The ships are rusting by the rotting dock

That constitutes their cold, collective graves –

As weather runs down every object’s clock.

I look at you, your each new crease and gray –

The sand swirls, eddies up around your feet

With waves which wash so no sand, stone will stay

The way or where it is with every beat.

And yet our children play and chase the birds

That live with what the waves stir up. The seals

Are nursing pups. Sea grass will feel the herds

Of deer who make for cougar mothers’ meals.

Destruction is a part of nature, true –

But first things must be made, then made anew.

Lost Girl

She had the words. She knew she had the words.

They forested her, dimmed the light. Her limbs

Spread, palms outstretched to block her movement. She

Had no idea which way to go. She cut

The roots, expecting she would float away –

She tumbled, crushed the touch-me-nots. Brown seeds

Shot out from curling pods. Forget-me-nots

As blue as bluets made mere scents of crushed

Herbaceousness the moment her trunk landed.

So certain, she set out, discovering

New lands – she named new things – but she will not

Return to tell us what she saw. No blaze

Was ever made. She’ll be forgotten, turn

To soil, become the forest floor, mere food F

or fungi. The words will mould, fertilize

A future poetry upon her bones.

She had the words – for one of future’s branches –

Should other poets trim the tree just right

With all their wind and lightning, rhythmic storms

That shape the art by felling forests. Then

She’ll be discovered, newly unforgotten.