Things that come in Opposites

I have asked once and again to all and no one in particular, what are we to do? I mean, what is your vision for America, in these last days of the Bush presidency? I stumble with words that lead in a circle, i.e. that don't get anwhere. I pray for a vision. As an appetizer for such, I give you this link http://www.politico.com/arena/bio/david_biespiel.html. Here David gives his vision for Christmastime in the age of fear and retribution. "Despite our many disagreements, the dog still needs his walk . . ." It's concrete. It specifies an action. It exhorts. It gets you out of your head.

What else? That compassionate communication can replace the felt duty to punish! For my own daily offering of a poem, here's one by Robert Frost, always a delight, and with rhymes for those that thought them lost. May your vision before the New Year come!


To a Thinker

The last step taken found your heft
Decidedly upon the left.
One more would throw you on the right.
Another still——you see your plight.
You call this thinking, but it's walking.
Not even that, it's only rocking,
Or weaving like a stabled horse:
From force to matter and back to force,
From form to content and back to form,
From norm to crazy and back to norm,
From bound to free and back to bound,
From sound to sense and back to sound.
So back and forth. It almost scares
A man the way things come in pairs.
Just now you're off democracy
(With a polite regret to be),
And leaning on dictatorship;
But if you will accept the tip,
In less than no time, tongue and pen,
You'll be a democrat again.
A reasoner and good as such,
Don't let it bother you too much
If it makes you look helpless please
And a temptation to the tease.
Suppose you've not direction in you,
I don't see but you must continue
O use the gift you do possess,
And sway with reason more or less.
I own I never really warmed
To the reformer or reformed.
And yet conversion has its place
Not halfway down the scale of grace.
So if you find you must repent
From side to side in argument,
At least don't use your mind too hard,
But trust my instinct——I'm a bard.