the art of love has no school no masters
no tenets to reject or uphold it has no form
it has no medium neither marble nor word
neither oil nor salt it has no cloud
no verdigris or craquelure no fixed horizon no
teetering windmills no basin no peak no frame
that which we seek can never be tendered
that which we seek o! novice we like a puma
can never be tamed or imprinted therein
Devon. I accept the sincerity of your statement but isn’t it always easier to say what isn’t than state what is the actual situation we face, in all its complexity. Love is a desire to see both sides, to say that if my enemy is not free to comment then neither am I, to admit, for example, that in the civil war in the US there was a winning side which was enriched by its victory and a losing side that was impoverished by its defeat. This resentment has been given 150 years to brew in your country. It’s easy for me to say, I’m English. But we have the same historical grievances between the English and the Irish. Our conflict is in abeyance, maybe yours is just about to explode.
If the old guy in the White House lacks the imagination to envisage what it’s like to be a supporter of the Confederacy in the USA today he’s not going to survive long, no matter what the Woke Left might say.
Yes yes, so easy to say and so f’ing difficult to put into practice as this poem was written just prior to the events of the 6th which left me and many others questioning whether to embrace the other side for the sake of peace and unity or disregard them entirely. And yes, our internal conflict is at a tipping point and sadly the fuse is lit. The test of our sad republic is at hand. Perhaps this piece reeks of the flavors of “pie in the sky” but I must try to save myself from all my bitterness and disdain for many of my fellow “countrymen”. I would be lying if I didn’t say I want these people crushed, such is the tenor these days. But at the same time, I MUST hold these thoughts at arm’s length. As I was washing dishes this evening, a thought popped into my head that may or may not work itself into something. That thought was “enemy of the state or state of the enemy / the choice is yours”
Sometimes I am reduced to a state of entropy as I try to understand the complexities of the host of historical grievances with which our countries are afflicted. In ‘To kill a mocking bird’, an American novel for our times if ever there was one, Atticus tells his daughter, Scout, that she cannot understand others until she is prepared to put herself in their situation – whether that situation is of the so easily dismissed ‘white trash’ Ewells, or the falsely accused Tom Robinson or the forever side-lined Boo Radley.
I love “To Kill A Mockingbird” – an absolute masterpiece with plenty to say. And it is true that you cannot understand the motivations of others without putting yourself in their situations. It is much easier to simply judge as a matter of course.
D