'Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking...'

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

graven images in the commons...

     I have a few thoughts for you, and this is as good a place as any to offer 'em, here among friends. [Looks around wondering who will actually read this.] First, graven images are harmless things. They have no power. It is stupid and superstitious to be outraged over them, just as it is stupid and superstitious to cling to them as magic totems of a 'heritage' defined largely by sentimental justifications of brute force. Second, the categories used to 'understand' what's happening are old, tired, and need to die. They weren't any good in the first place. What's more, nearly everyone seems to be re-enacting, in deadly ernest, some period of the past. This isn't the thirties in Germany, or the late fifties and early sixties in Alabama. It isn't Reconstruction. The old scripts don't work, so let's throw them out. Even what passes for 'radical' and 'progressive' is obsolete. You want change, so change for Christ's sake.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

a poem revisited...


     I wrote this a long time ago; it's been something like nine or ten years. It came to me after an illness had kept me locked inside for a couple of months. For some reason, I was reminded of it this morning.

Song



     Today I’ll go outside
leave the house as if for the first time
hear again snow under foot
see my breath again fog the crisp air
     yes today I’ll go outside
leave the house as if for the first time

     today I’ll go outside
see blue sky as if for the first time
feel again warm sun on my face
aslant mixed with the sting of the cold
     yes today I’ll go outside
see blue sky as if for the first time

     today I’ll go outside
hear folks talk as if for the first time
hear all the old neighbors talk
strangers talk while nursing their tea
     yes today I’ll go outside
hear folks talk as if for the first time

     those who won’t hear snow
under foot see blue sky feel again sun
on their face while the voices ring on
     regret regret as I go outside
leave the house as if for the first time