A Poem Inspired by Stoic Physics (1999)

An old classic, published for the first time

Pop culture interest in Stoicism this decade has focused on Stoic Ethics. However, as my past studies concerned Stoic Physics, I was interested in causality, nature, cosmology and fate, as expounded by the ancient Stoics and understood by Byzantine thinkers.

Below I publish for the first time what’s perhaps my oldest poem, written c. 1999, inspired by those philosophical readings. It was probably written before the Byzantine poems of 2000; these were first published last August here, on Mediterranean Poetry. As youthful enthusiasm should not be mistaken for expertise, please consider the work as more an artistic exploration of ideas than an authoritative stamp of didactic rigor.

A Roman bust of a Hellenistic sculpture of my favorite Stoic, Chrysippus (Wikipedia)

God is nature is fate is reason (1999)

By Christopher Deliso

There is no accidental motion;

Causes account for and causes create

Fixed things and moving, attest their cohesion;

And so the staunch Stoic dictum.

A rock does not from gravity fall, but

Plunging fulfills its existence. Nature

Has sewn its own secret cause, and knows

To not weave a cylinder.

Yet there is room in this world for other rocks, aware

Of gravitational force, and they fall, having

Learned to resemble less rocks.

There are innumerable worlds, each distinct

From the rest; we know this from Zeno,

Cleanthes, Chrysippus. They posit the cosmos

Repeats, recurs; that time, the measure of motion is like

The line captivating a fish hook, that

Which can be outspun and inreeled again.

There are worlds that collide, and others that merge

And some that resolve into fire;

There are causes for rocks, and reasons for motion,

And a Chrysippus who refutes this doctrine entire;

And yet another ‘Chrysippus,’ name signifying

Only the blade of a knife.