A poem for this moment

January 14, 2020 at 12:02 pm (By Amba) ()

Yes, Auden’s “September 1, 1939.” Yes, Yeats’s “The Second Coming.” Sure, even Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach.” But this one by e e cummings is right up there.

pity this busy monster, manunkind

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
                          A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

E. E. Cummings

1 Comment

  1. Polly said,

    January 14, 2020 at 12:25 pm

    Well yes, progress is a disease. We can’t help thinking we got it all figured out, we are brainwashed into that. But we have nothing figured out, except how to self-destruct.

    And everyone wants to blame someone else.

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