I did my homework. I listened to your video. Citizens United, a friend murdered, a changed life. You are a storyteller, a teacher, an actor. I think you studied Shakespeare along with economics. You captured me in the nineties when I heard or read your explanation of how a consumer economy works or doesn't work. You made sense, period. A…
I did my homework. I listened to your video. Citizens United, a friend murdered, a changed life. You are a storyteller, a teacher, an actor. I think you studied Shakespeare along with economics. You captured me in the nineties when I heard or read your explanation of how a consumer economy works or doesn't work. You made sense, period. Afterwards I was trying to digest this lecture and for some unknown reason thought of Stanley Kunitz -
I did my homework. I listened to your video. Citizens United, a friend murdered, a changed life. You are a storyteller, a teacher, an actor. I think you studied Shakespeare along with economics. You captured me in the nineties when I heard or read your explanation of how a consumer economy works or doesn't work. You made sense, period. Afterwards I was trying to digest this lecture and for some unknown reason thought of Stanley Kunitz -
The Layers
BY STANLEY KUNITZ
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.