Tomorrow . . .

Tomorrow, a leader who is open about his authoritarian and fascist tendencies assumes power in this country. Even though there is much to criticize in the democrats and plenty of reasons not to want to vote for most of their candidates, the choice of a leader who has no respect for the rule of law is the worst decision voters could have made. And why did they make that choice? One word: inflation. Instead of blaming the billionaires who are actually responsible for inflation (as labor leader Humberto Selix used to say: “Inflation is rich people inflating their pockets with poor peoples’ wages”), voters elected a billionaire who is beholden to his billionaire cronies. America has truly sold its birthright for a bowl of soup! A bowl of soup that is only going to get more out of reach. Hopefully, future buyer’s remorse will be enough to wake people up to the terrible choice that they have made. But will it be too late? And will it be enough to drive people to call for change in a system that has been making America more and more unequal, and life harder for the poor and middle class for a whole generation?

The Poetry of Novalis

Einst da ich bittre Tränen vergoß, da in Schmerz aufgelöst meine Hoffnung zerrann, und ich einsam stand am dürren Hügel, der in engen, dunkeln Raum die Gestalt meines Lebens barg – einsam, wie noch kein Einsamer war, von unsäglicher Angst getrieben – kraftlos, nur ein Gedanken des Elends noch. – Wie ich da nach Hülfe umherschaute, vorwärts nicht konnte und rückwärts nicht, und am fliehenden, verlöschten Leben mit unendlicher Sehnsucht hing: – da kam aus blauen Fernen – von den Höhen meiner alten Seligkeit ein Dämmerungsschauer – und mit einem Male riß das Band der Geburt – des Lichtes Fessel.

                                                                               --Novalis, Hymnen an die Nacht, 3

Once when I shed bitter tears, when my hope dissolved in pain and I stood alone on the barren hill that concealed the shape of my life in a narrow, dark space—as alone as no lonely person had ever been, driven by unspeakable fear—powerless, only an idea of misery. As I looked around for help, unable to go forward or back, and clinging with endless longing to the fleeing, extinguished life; there came from the blue distance—from the heights of my old bliss—a twilight shiver, and suddenly the bond of birth—the fetters of light—were broken.

Novalis, in his prose writing, especially his fragments, is an explorer: observing, pondering, developing half-formed, tentative ideas. His prose work is insightful but contingent.

     But in his poetry, he is a prophet: intuitive, confident, wise. His fragments are speculative, but his poetry (which sometimes, as with the above fragment, takes the form of what is commonly called “prose poetry”) is consummate, imperative, visionary, sure.