November 6, 2012

November 6 . . . election day!  It's been a long time coming, and the passion and rhetoric has been intense on all sides.  For us the weather is perfect for voting, blank blue ballot of sky, sunshine and mild air, no excuses here.  Many people have already voted but more to come, and late into the night ballots will be counted, and arguments rendered, and the results may not be known for days.  Still, in large parts of the world, people die to be able to cast a ballot, to have some choice, to have a say in what their country will or won't do.  So many people here will not even vote, will let the opportunity to make a choice drift off and be lost.   So, a reminder amid all the others you will probably get today by phone, or broadcast, or word of mouth . . . vote, make your choice known.

In looking for the appropriate poem, I wanted one that would be non-partisan, as among the people who get this note there are positions on both sides of nearly every issue, and that's what makes this country, that people can have positions on both sides and be able to voice them, to defend them, to hold them dear, even when the other side thinks they're . . . crazy <chuckle>! 

Children of Our Era   
We are children of our era;
our era is political.
All affairs, day and night,
yours, ours, theirs,
are political affairs.
Like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin a political cast,
your eyes a political aspect.

What you say has a resonance;
what you are silent about is telling.
Either way, it's political.

Even when you head for the hills
you're taking political steps
on political ground.

Even apolitical poems are political,
and above us shines the moon,
by now no longer lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Question? What question? Dear, here's a suggestion:
a political question.

You don't even have to be a human being
to gain political significance.
Crude oil will do,
or concentrated feed, or any raw material.

Or even a conference table whose shape
was disputed for months:
should we negotiate life and death
at a round table or a square one?

Meanwhile people were dying,
animals perishing,
houses burning,
and fields growing wild,
just as in times most remote
and less political.

Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

There seems to be a lot that's political, though we don't vote on it specifically.  My favorite line is the one about even what you are silent about is political, and sometimes I think that may be the most political thing of all.  And even though it may look like it, politics is not related to polite, and somehow I don't find that surprising, for all they look pretty much alike.  Politics is related to city, to the state, while polite is related to . . . polish, to making something shine.  In this age, politics is, as the poem says, everywhere, and a lot less than polite.  One of the basic ideas of manners is to show, by how they are accepted, who is in and who is out, and how polite can that be?  But it certainly can be deemed . . . politic, yes?  So even something as basic as how we treat each other can be bound up in the politics of living in a society, any society.  I'm not sure there was a time when things were less political, even in prehistoric times, I believe as soon as people worked and lived together instead of singly, there was "them" and "us" and there is no getting around that, but . . . being polite . . . does make it easier to get along, or at least keep the factions from killing each other long enough to create civilization.  Ritual and routine are always part of society, make up the bulwark that adds to safety, and also creates the power that is an intimate part of politics, just about anyone who reads this poem will recognize the fuss made over the table shape, the seating arrangements, the security, the jockeying for advantage as part of every political event. Even if politics and polite are not related as words, and not related in day to day campaigning, they are related to the survival of people and the state.  Making our voice heard is the physical representation of our claim to power, the power to choose.  Make a choice!  Vote!