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| Joan Didion died 9 days ago, on December 23, 2021 |
By Moristotle
A dear friend warned me this morning that a massive change is coming along with a truth that will rock the entire world, but when I asked him what the changes would be and whether they would involve the Second Coming, he was willing to characterize them only as “another chance for human kind to straighten up and fly right and be nice to each other.” I was reminded of W.B. Yeats’ 1919 poetic description of big changes he saw coming over a hundred years ago. I read it again today, and I invite you to read it too:
The Second Coming_______________
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
I checked whether we’d ever quoted this Yeats poem. We had, excerpting the opening in a “Fish for Friday” column on September 12, 2014. Because that Friday’s column featured some wonderful nature photos, I was tempted to re-run it, but I thought I’d just let the link suffice, for anyone with the time and interest. Readers are so occupied today with their New Year’s resolutions!
| Copyright © 2022 by Moristotle |
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