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
Labels: fake news, global consciousness, history, human nature, human spirit, life forces, new technology, personal space, poetry, politics, positive thinking, progress, society, time, ulterior motivation