Wednesday, January 9, 2008

citizenship



“An Enemy is as Useful as The Buddha”

“Some politicians try to persuade their
audience that they agree with them.

McCain welcomes disagreement and
talks about it.”

David Brooks
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/
08brooks.html?th&emc=th

The push toward unity.
The pull toward diversity.
A true dichotomy or faux?

Either way: a difference that makes
a difference & any citizen is likely
to feel the tension: rock & a hard
pace, devils & deep blue sees.
Agon or Agony: it hurts.

Do they Just Get Along?
Wholes & Parts & Parties?
Call it a Liberal Art question.
Also a Language Problem.

Bring in the English majors, I say;
let them explain & demonstrate uses
of contra-diction & paradox, margins
of error & rooms for play, so as to
comfort affliction & afflict the comfort-
able. Protagonisim practicing citizenship:
Good Work & Service too.

The only Hope, or else Despair,
Lies in the Choice of Pyre or Pyre:
to be redeemed from Fire by Fire.

Who then devised the torment?

Love.

Love is the unfamiliar Name
behind the hands that wove
the
intolerable shirt of Flame
which
human power can not remove.

We only live, only suspire,
consumed by either Fire

or Fire.

Citizen Eliot, from 4 Quartets,
somewhat reformatted to fit
my screed.

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