A Lecture on Heidegger

Heidegger, laboring late one night
discovered selbtsbegebenheit.
And later, in his lonely room,
beneath his bed, his sinngebung.

And all the lonely years spent fearing
that he'd never find the sacred clearing
where Being waited for Becoming
were healed by his bold hermeneutic.
(A thing he found most therapeutic
along with an obsessive thumbing
of ancient volumes pre-Socratic).

With metaphysics wearing thin
he examined our man Hölderlin.
At a loss for words he didn't panic
relying on his tongue Germanic
to bring his deepest thoughts to light
(und zo he gave us Sein und Zeit).

His ferverent hope that all would see
things phenomenosologically
led him to unceremoniously beg
that it was all still unterweg
sur sprache, that most eloquent sign
and exclusive purview of Dasein.

Zuhandenheit, Vorhandenheit
I really couldn't care.
Besorge and Fursorge!
Always and Everywhere!

Umgang, Ausgang, now we're really rollin'!
At last, but not least, there's gewissenhabenwollen!

Timothy O'Smith