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A Farewell to Reason

Poetry by Echo

Late at night, with the thunder rumbling low on the horizon and sleep just beyond reach, I find myself wandering. New Age Flamenco music on the stereo hovers just below radar as I look for a book to occupy my mind.

You know the kind of book I mean ... one that doesn't demand a huge investment of time and that can be set aside easily when sleep beckons. Ideally it will offer something to think about as you lie back down.

Tonight, my eye fell upon "A Farewell To Reason," a book of verse by ... seriously ... a systems engineer who designs combat simulations for the United States Army. Written under the pen name Echo, this book of hauntingly lyrical poems has become a favorite for late-night reading.

Much of the volume is taken up with poems of love and relationships ... themes with which almost anyone can identify. Echo has the knack of capturing in a few lines those feelings most of us never quite find the words to describe.

Can you see me,
a silhouette in the crowd
for you walked into the room,
and the room disapeared.

And

The trees guarding this country road
know exactly how I feel,
limbs stir within the island breeze,
but from here will never leave.

Other poems draw more heavily upon Echo's alter-ego in the military. The title poem, for example, is a wonderful piece of short verse. Using only 12 lines, Echo manages to paint a portrait of how far mankind has advanced ... and how little things have changed.

Two soldiers in a combat zone;
Two soldiers went in alone;
The bullets whip, the cannons groan;
Two soldiers not coming home;

Add years to this experience;
Knowledge breeds intelligence;
New ideologies, technologies,
supersonic speeds, NATO policies;

Two pilots in a combat zone;
Two pilots flew in alone;
Missiles flare, anti-aircraft groans;
Two pilots not coming home.

At 83 pages, "A Farewell to Reason" is short enough to read in a sitting. That's fortunate, because there's a tendency with this book to read one more poem until the night slips away completely.

Order A Farewell to Reason from Amazon.com.

Published in the October 1998 issue of M-Ark, the monthly 'zine of Mensa Arkansas.

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