Sky Islands in the Distance

Abstract

Sky Islands in the Distance J. Novalis Wolfe There is clear support for the idea that mental states are subjective if they are ascribed to creatures who can ascribe them to themselves without observation, by other creatures who can ascribe similar states to themselves in the same way. —Thomas Nagel Patterned undulations, he saw them asLike his own skeined skin of folded flesh inscribedAgainst a blue aureole of void, while up Close a saw-whet owl hooting tunes on keenMesquite supposed these back-lit hills to be itsGod, the zenith of its own marrow being. What caused them so, man, mountain and fawning birdMixed in a world of sense, of thoughtful sense,This pure fiction of cosmic seem? Surely They are themselves the rich stuff of Neither-Land(of here nor there); the simple froth of mereThings shared within a space of imagination Of mind so each one’s three-fold part can knowA new whole of harmonium, our worldIn its reasoned red of twilight being there. [End Page 110] J. Novalis Wolfe Hereford, Arizona Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press