more cummings
Not the next morning but the morning after that, Uncle Albert asked, “What did you think of that one about freedom?”
Not sure what he meant, I shrugged. He added, “That poem by cummings, ‘as freedom is a breakfastfood.’” “Oh,” I said. “Read it again,” he ordered.
“What do you think about it?”
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He gave me that look, that sniff.
“None of these things is going to happen,” I said. “The false premise proves the false conclusion.”
“Spoken by a true logic-chopper.”
“What does that mean?”
“What I choose it to mean,” he said, “as the Philosopher* says.”
I tried to give him the look, the sniff. I’m not very good at it, but I got a reaction. Surprisingly.
“‘So seduced by logic, that everything must be seen through it.’”
I couldn’t disagree, so I said: “But that doesn’t make what I said wrong. Freedom isn’t a breakfast food, truth can’t live with right and wrong, molehills can’t be made from mountains, so being will never pay the rent of seem any more than water will encourage flame.
“And so forth, I said.”
“Go on,” he looked at me.
“Hat racks will never become peach trees and the impure will never find all things pure any more than children will sting hornets and the hornets run crying to their mothers. Robins will always welcome spring and tomorrow will always be too late.”
“And the last verse?” Uncle Albert asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “You tell me.”
“Well,” he said, “breasts are breasts.”
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