Joyce's Bird Poems

  1 2 February 2021 Ode to Flexibility Is it our main joy for each day that we awake Having planned everything we will do that day, What and when we will eat, who we will meet, And with time blocked out for exercise, fun and play? We are confident that we know all that will happen And we have carefully limited the risks we will face, And that each evening we can happily head to bed With the coming day planned in detail, just in case. Do we ever consider that we do pay a large price For so diligently seeking safety, security and peace of mind, A re we forgetting the complexity and unpredictability of life, When we force it to fit whatever mould that we find? Would it be better to just to let life unfold as it will And to rejoice when our plans suddenly change, as they do, Thus reminding us that our entangled, interacting world Can provide more delight and marvels than we ever knew? Sure, there are many risks involved by living

  5 February 2021 Seeking the Truth What a wonderful world it would be, If the Truth was always in one place , So we knew exactly what to think and how to live, And that we were absolutely right in every case. There would be no more talk of misinformation, Or worrying if something is just fake news, We could live confidently and happily every day, Knowing that we had the correct and acceptable views. How would this world of the one and only T ruth work If everyone thought and acted just the same? There could never be anything new or different ‘ Cause it wouldn’t be the T ruth - you'd end up in shame . I f the T ruth said that the best life is with a computer And that it is dangerous to work in the dirt, How would we find anyone to make the computers, Or to grow our food without getting hurt? All our world changes and evolves continuously over time So every day we must see and learn something new. This wouldn’t work if there were a single

  M usings about Entanglement Thinking about e ntanglement takes me back to one of my happiest memories, forward to my many distressing thoughts about our troubled future, and then, surprisingly, another important step further. I have been on a truly amazing journey just by exploring this one simple word. I hope you will find it as fascinating and rewarding as I have. First – a step back into the past. It is 1986, and I am travelling up the rugged west coast of Oregon in the United States with my son Craig, then 10, and my daughter Janet, then 5. It is a grey, windy, wet day. W e reluctantly put on our rain gear and Wellingtons to go wander ing on a rocky , log-littered beach. Behind a pile of big logs, we f ind a real treasure – a large knotted and twisted tangle of old, wet, ocean- worn rope. Our mood suddenly changes, and the day feels brighter. W e sit for the next couple of hours slowly untangling the rope. Sometimes we struggle just to figure ou