Was the primal beam of the Reichstag or guillotine, inscribed:
‘The party must give value to things, or nothing has valuation.’
But can values be carved ex nihilo, or a mortise without a tenon?
Even Nietzsche could say ‘ta’ to his preacher pa for his Superman,
Sketched from his sermons. As surely as evil will batten on
The good, so life serves drinks from a complementary can,
Bitter not having such gall, had we not savoured mead,
Nor pain such edge, did love not sensitize itself -
But with love’s furnishings positives take lodgings in the head.
Fling gold in the air - and if it falls as straw, desire dies;
But you glimpsed its twinkling tease and welcomed its season.
If you love, till the sweetness of forgiveness dawns from your eyes,
Till loving is dearer than loved and you know the reason
Of love’s unreason, its grievous toll and pain,
The awesome beauty of self-sacrifice, - in the hour of betrayal
Though trust and happiness fly, your qualities remain.
If brethren set sail - and a ship of fools returns,
They weren’t led astray by their stars, but by the Idols of the Cave.¹
If you hope for land and riches, and price your sojourns
By the land that pays, the miles from your ancestral grave,
Not pleading Lord’s pox or greed,² but looking right in the face
Every man before clearing your title, - even if hopes are dashed,
Still they may confirm the brotherhood of the human race.
If people swap treasure for a pitcher of swill, will its overturning
Not commend the treasure, instead of the now empty pitcher?
If you have faith and the psalm in your heart is spurning
The mantis, the peacock, the possum,³ making you richer;
¹ According to Francis Bacon in his Novum Organum, the Idols of the Cave are idiosyncratic habits of thought, caused by temperament, environment and the concentration of one’s efforts in a limited activity or field. So actors over-emphasize acting, scientists science, capitalists capital in their own mental caverns. Such troglo- dytic thinking in those who seek a new world will found a very different one from the absolutist Pilgrim Fathers.