Humboldt of Light

From the Prussian aristocracy he sees
saw slavery colonialism human greed seeds
of where we are today
through “Essay on the Geography of Plants” 1807 to “Cosmos” 1845
he made
connections
his theme and influence a confluence of
dreamers
Goethe Poe Thoreau Emerson Muir

Crossing the sea South America Chimborazo Muir
the Humboldt current
flowing through Bolivar Jefferson no know Napoleon
searched his rooms

His ideas found Madison Whitman Verne
by their turns Huxley Coleridge
Humboldt’s whole view poetry nature imagination
the subtleties of rivers trees the earth scene
affinities
or
as G. P. Marsh would see man and nature would meet
through meat and drought plough and axe
a falling through from “Man the Disturber of Nature’s Harmonies”
into “Man and Nature”

Humboldt of life
mountain man of life liberty and the pursuit of
seeing not just the leaf
but the tree the visionary saw “mankind’s mischief”
and man kind keystone species archway
beholding the truth and beauty of nature’s peace
or
a view that will “ravage” the land and “barren” the
stars

Under his life’s light now see his
Kosmos
beauty and order Heaven and Earth
the internal and the external the whole
in us
filled with the thoughts
of
Alexander (the Great) von Humboldt

7/24/16