Dale Jacobson

Because we know we share these mysteries,

and we all die, we should walk the streets

as though we can say:  "You are no different, 

no one is different."  The sun and shade fall on us 

the same, and hands and names are all equal.

Jacobson's long poem sweeps a broad range of inquiry into our relationship to the universe, to time, to our history and especially each other.  It is, also, a political inquiry that reaches beyond the limitations of witness, resistance, or protest, all of which approaches, while useful and important, tend to respond primarily to the most heinous events as if they occur separate from our more civilized norms.  By definition a witness stands apart.  This poem instead puts politics at the very core of who we are.  We find that politics  is a fundamental determinant of our consciousness that defines how we relate to each other, and therefore how we see ourselves.

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