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?
-- William Butler Yeats,
The Second Coming
I found this poem pounding in my mind as I watched the tv coverage of the little boy named Falcon. The photography was very telescopic incredibly imminent. With my little girl upstairs I turned the volume down. The gondola was swirling, the half-deflated balloon seemed to be smothering it. It lurched crazily.
They gave background on the family. The dad is a storm-chaser. The believe in aliens. The balloon was not meant to fly; it was a family fun project. The parents wanted their kids to enjoy their childhood,. "A child will only be a five year old once. He should experience being a five year old."
"A rocking cradle"..."in the treetop, when the bough breaks..."
My son called from MT. I turned off the tv. He told me about how everyone out there is buying (even more) guns and ammunition, how he went into the firestation where he works and someone had a "Second Amendment" magazine with an article about Obama’s 10 steps for taking away your guns and ammo. My son is in the National Guard; he owns a semi-assault rifle. He voted for Obama; he’s a liberal out there. He thinks Baucus is excellent "He really represents the state."
We talked about South Carolina; he said he spent a week in the country there in the ‘90s. ‘They’re still not over the Civil War." "The center cannot hold... mere anarchy".
Who is the Sphinx? (Who is the Walrus?) Must be Obama. I’m listening to Glenn Beck raving...
We are the indulgent parents. They are the animated "worst full of passionate intensity." So we believe. I believe – hope it is so. But who is the worst?
The children belong to us all. They are all our children. They We. Us. US.