Moratorium
They will not harm nor destroy
in all my holy mountain.
–Isaiah 11:9
Like day glo lemons
tipped end to end
the yellow Tang
rise inside the
breaking waves then,
spilling out, regroup
in schools that graze
the shallows’ dark, volcanic rocks,
no less content in their liquid
sway of surf than any stand still
band of sheep on solid
fields of sloping green.
No sharks in the pasture,
not a wolf on the reef;
a beautiful day.
______________
Keith Hansen
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
Two poems, two realities (the animal kingdom and the human’s) in one – hence the title, I suppose.
True: no sharks in the pasture, no wolves on the reef. A meagre consolation, when the waters are shallow and volcanic, and the green sloping. The water will soon evaporate; the slope is already a sheer drop.
Given the state of the “holy” mountain, it is hard not to read irony in this poem. Equally, it is hard not to dislike the prophets (both old and new) for their simplistic, illogical, mostly deceitful messages, easily used as tools to manipulate the naïve (which reminds me of a poem from the previous issue).
Luckily, we’ve watched too many nature documentaries to believe in the one-dimensional peace from a predator-free world. Without danger and fear of being hunted, sheep wouldn’t graze in flocks, and fish wouldn’t swim in schools. Imagine, if you could, mountains and seas populated only by idle individuals, drifting alone, self-absorbed, unaware of and inexperienced in each other’s company – with everything that entails.
Back in the world of men, wolves have learned to dress like sheep and continue slaughtering lambs. Meagre consolation, without executioners there would be no heroes, no fables – perhaps even no concept of history.
A beautiful day. Poetry returns us to the million-dollar question: where is beauty? Do we find it in the (inevitable) struggle – or in its (fantasized) absence? Leopardi would tell us that it is to be found in the fleeting moment between the former state and the latter (Passata è la tempesta: Odo augelli far festa; Passed is the storm: I hear birds celebrating).