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Sun 28 Aug, 2011 01:39 pm
Edgar, I thought it was appropriate for Robert Bly's poem Call and Answer he wrote after 911 to read again on the ten year anniversary. ---BBB
CALL AND ANSWER
by Robert Bly
Tell me why it is we don’t lift our voices these days
And cry over what is happening. Have you noticed
The plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting?
I say to myself: “Go on, cry. What’s the sense
Of being an adult and having no voice? Cry out!
See who will answer! This is Call and Answer!”
We will have to call especially loud to reach
Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding
In the jugs of silence filled during our wars.
Have we agreed to so many wars that we can’t
Escape from silence? If we don’t lift our voices, we allow
Others (who are ourselves) to rob the house.
How come we’ve listened to the great criers—Neruda,
Akhmatova, Thoreau, Frederick Douglass—and now
We’re silent as sparrows in the little bushes?
Some masters say our life lasts only seven days.
Where are we in the week? Is it Thursday yet?
Hurry, cry now! Soon Sunday night will come.
Robert Bly is a fine poet. I appreciate you calling attention to his poem. As Sept 11 approaches, it will be read again and again. As we honor the victims, we need to remember that a solution to the war with terrorists has not been found. Lest their deaths be in vain, we have to keep searching.
(clears throat. drinks rapidly a glass of water.)
(Peers into the dark. Self consciously taps the mike a few times. Hastily exits.)