Dotting I's and Crossing T's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber 

)I recall various classmates of 1961 becoming very feisty and argumentative when asked to comment on certain lines in T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. 

When asked to explain so many different arguments and points of view, the class became feistier still and even more argumentative. 

Everyone was clearly enjoying themselves, possibly because most of us hadn’t expected to enjoy the poem, not least for having had to read it for homework over the previous school holidays. 

No less aware then now as to how differences of personal opinion and interpretation can touch base with passions in us with which we may or may be overly familiar, it was my first major experience of seriously thinking about it. 

We need to hear and respect different points of view if only to help us formulate a critical response to them.   

DOTTING I’s AND CROSSING T’S

World, all but falling apart
seemingly losing heart, its peoples
coming together
now and then, but only in times
of crises, personal space
and sensitive global consciousness
then left to divide again,
crying over potential healing undone,
dying to review Square One 

World, looking all but dead
on its feet, weary of its weepy days,
anxious to revive kinder ways,
bridge chasms widening, deepening,
invariably by courtesy
of a global consciousness dead set
on reaping the better part
of nature-nurture in the sowing, reaping,
and saving of its own future 

Humanity, playing the world
with its demand for new technologies,
would have us tell tales
on each other, create such histories
of one-upmanship as embrace
all the politics of progress ever needed
to take credit where it’s to be had,
while any getting too close to home truths
dubbed vulnerable to fake news 

No matter how we dot its ‘i’ or cross its ‘t’,
it only takes one ‘y’ to redefine humanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021