January
23, 2010
Self-defense
Everyone
knows you don’t just disappear. (See previous post.) You build walls, immure
yourself, debar distractions, repel invaders. You arm yourself against projectiles, ladders,
rams, tunnels. You tactic tactics, become vigilant.
The Cynics foreswore tactics for a grand
strategy: Have no city to fortify. “Foxes have their holes, birds of the air
their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” Own nothing you cannot walk away from or walk
away with. (Live out of your ph/ra.)
Hard to do when you have to work for a
living. In any case, walls nor
wandering can deflect the powers of the air. For that you must believe in a
greater power. And here is why people stay drunk for years; it’s a distraction
to overwhelm all other distractions. Don’t walk. Run! Don’t run. Swim! Don’t
swim. Drown! – it worked for the Gadarene swine.
Y
Richard
Wilbur:
Matthew
VIII, 28 ff.
Rabbi,
we Gadarenes
Are
not ascetics; we are fond of wealth and possessions.
Love,
as you call it, we obviate by means
Of
the planned release of aggressions.
We
have deep faith in prosperity.
Soon,
it is hoped, we will reach our full potential.
In
the light of our gross product, the practice of charity
Is
palpably inessential.
It
is true that we go insane;
That
for no good reason we are possessed by devils;
That
we suffer, despite the amenities which obtain
At
all but the lowest levels.
We
shall not, however, resign
Our
trust in the high-heaped table and the full trough.
If
you cannot cure us without destroying our swine,
We
had rather you shoved off.
© Richard Wilbur. Collected
Poems 1943-2004. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt (2004). Originally published
in Walking to Sleep: New Poems and Translations. New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World (1969).
W
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