A very nice antidote, (maybe even a vaccination!) to all the magical promises of the next new thing. These systems grind on of their own seeming volition. Inscrutable "hyperobjects" in Tim Morton's notion. Your mention of things "lost in translation" triggered a memory of this (long) poem which includes the glancing, hopeful note:
A very nice antidote, (maybe even a vaccination!) to all the magical promises of the next new thing. These systems grind on of their own seeming volition. Inscrutable "hyperobjects" in Tim Morton's notion. Your mention of things "lost in translation" triggered a memory of this (long) poem which includes the glancing, hopeful note:
"But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it"
James Merrill: https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/jm3-lost.htm
Herbert has been on my mind for this reason exactly. Lucidity that refuses absorption.
“go upright among those who are on their knees / among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust”
Herbert: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48501/the-envoy-of-mr-cogito
Wow. Never saw that poem - or that poet. Thanks.
Powerful echoes of Archibald MacLeish’s (1948) “The Geography of This Time” and “The Mad Farmer Liberation Manifesto” https://allpoetry.com/poem/12622463-Manifesto--The-Mad-Farmer-Liberation-Front-by-Wendell-Berry
I will have to check out MacLeish. Appreciate the rec! Love Wendell Berry.