The danger, when not seen, has the imperfect vagueness of human thought. The fear grows shadowy; and Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors, unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion.
- Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
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When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.
- Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis)
Haven’t we all felt like the vermin before?
Foreign troops may be able to win war in a place, but they can hardly win peace.
- Wen Jiabo
“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.”
- Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein)
My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.
- Robert Walton (Frankenstein)
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When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?
- Elizabeth Lavensa (Frankenstein)
Litany
You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine... —Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass and the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, and the marsh birds suddenly in flight. However, you are not the wind in the orchard, the plums on the counter, or the house of cards. And you are certainly not the pine-scented air. There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air. It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge, maybe even the pigeon on the general's head, but you are not even close to being the field of cornflowers at dusk. And a quick look in the mirror will show that you are neither the boots in the corner nor the boat asleep in its boathouse. It might interest you to know, speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world, that I am the sound of rain on the roof. I also happen to be the shooting star, the evening paper blowing down an alley and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table. I am also the moon in the trees and the blind woman's tea cup. But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife. You are still the bread and the knife. You will always be the bread and the knife, not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.
- Billy Collins
Ryszard…
We walked in no specific direction but kept as far as possible from the commotion of the war. Somewhere, not far from there, must have been Guatemala. And further, Mexico. And further still, the United States. But for us at that moment, all those countries were on another planet. The inhabitants there had their own lives and thought about entirely different problems. Perhaps they did not know that we had a war here. No war can be conveyed over a distance. Somebody sits eating dinner and watching television: pillars of earth blown into the air; cut - the tracks of a charging tank; cut - soldiers falling and writhing in pain; - and the man watching television gets angry and curses because while he was gaping at the screen he over salted his soup. War becomes a spectacle, a show, when it is seen from a distance and expertly re-shaped in the cutting room. In reality a soldier sees no further than his own nose, has his eyes full of sand or sweat, shoots at random and clings to the ground like a mole. Above all, he is frightened. The front line soldier says little: if questioned he might not answer at all, or might respond only by shrugging his shoulders. As a rule he walks around hungry and sleepy, not knowing what the next order will be or what will become of him in an hour. War makes for a constant familiarity with death and the experience of it sinks deep into the memory. Afterwards, in old age, a man reaches back more and more to his war memories, as if recollections of the front expand with time, as if he had spent his whole life in a foxhole.
Stealing through the forest I asked the soldier why they [Honduras] were fighting with El Salvador. he replied that he did not know, that it was a government affair. I asked him how he could fight when he did not know why he was spilling blood. He answered that when you live in a village it’s better not to ask questions because questions arouse the suspicions of the mayor, and then the mayor would volunteer him for the road gang, and, on the road gang, he would have to neglect his farm and his family, and then the hunger waiting for him on his return would be even greater. And isn’t the everyday poverty enough as it is? A man has to live in such a way that his name never reaches the ears of authorities. If it does, they write it down immediately and then that man is in for a lot of trouble later. Government matters are not fit for the mind of a village farmer, because the government understands such things but nobody’s going to let a dirt farmer do anything.
-Ryszard Kapuściński (excerpt from The Soccer War)
Theodicy
Cold sweeps east across the asphalt predestined
for the warehouses of the snow, the darkening
suburbs. I think of Job, and wonder
if God ever really got back to business.
After He’d consented to boils and crushed
livestock, servants’ and children’s throats
slit, after ash, maybe one still afternoon
God raised both hands above His head
as if to say, “I’ve had enough,” and renounced
all of it, took a job behind a desk
wearing khaki-colored scrubs, filing papers
to code and answering the phones, His voice
far away, disinterested, yet familiar to those
desperate on the other end of the line.
If it were you fidgeting in the waiting room
you’d not even notice Him.
Just north past the ridgeline’s barren pin oaks
I watch in the rearview as the cold silhouette
of our doctor’s office park dissolves
into the outskirts of suburban sprawl.
Quick as a signal change: eighteen cautious
months of “trying” become eighteen months
of failure. It’s sunset, and off to our left
a tracery of orange ignites turnpike
tract house flashing, precisely, as if
something ecstatic had found us, but
I know better. Beside me, my wife’s
stopped sobbing, nestles into herself
against the frosted window’s glass.
Spine curved to pull knees tight
to her chest, neck in a prayerless bow,
her body becomes the wrenched shape
of all we’ve wanted, and more and more
I fear the stupid hope in me that says,
“You can live with the unacceptable.” I want
to comfort her, to say anything, to get
Biblical, that is to say how the Lord
sent a pillar of fire at night
to guide His children home, how
He plucked a rib whole
from the darkness of the body, so,
you know, we’ve got it good, considering.
A bogus theodicy to be sure, but what else
is there? If God is with us, then maybe
He lives around here, too, some duplex on a loop
or a single apartment with a satellite dish.
Maybe right now God is, like us,
commuting across town toward home,
or headed from work to the store, or maybe
to nowhere in particular. He’s just
driving, His window cracked to feel
the cold wind as the sun descends,
while the rest of us pull in to our driveways,
jangle our keys at the front door, and try
to keep on believing, even as we
lock it behind us and turn out the light.
- Joshua Robbins
(Yes, Josh, I love reading your work or that which you deem important. Thank you for your words.)
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