Enthralling as it can be to watch the offended reactions people have when certain taps stop flowing and it is revealed that the well is dry -- when a certain way of being can't be taken for granted any longer (as if taking for granted is ever the right way to go?) and those who have been masters of taking become furious -- it is exhausting too. Because the rest of us have been here all along unable to escape the ceaseless noise that greed generates, we're already tired. Listening to the fury now really just wears one out. And makes one hope for the return of the fulfilling quiet that comes of being sustained by what you already are.
In silent (and thankful) celebration of even the slightest possibility of that return, I re-read Seamus Heaney's poem, From the Republic of Conscience.
The airport in this wonderous republic is "so noiseless that when the engines stopped/I could hear a curlew high above the runway."
In this place there are "No porters. No interpreter. No taxi./You carried your own burden and very soon/your symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared."
And it is a place so remarkable and humbling that "At their inauguration, public leaders/must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep/to atone for their presumption to hold office."
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