Common Morning Glory

 

Taking a Stab at Cultural Appropriation - a brief essay

Lawrence Hall, HSG

mhall46184@aol.com

Taking a Stab at Cultural Appropriation

On the morning of 28 October I happened to watch Crystal Greenberg reporting the news via MSNBC. I noticed on a shelf behind her what appeared to be a Roman gladius, a short military sword.  The handle seemed in appropriate condition for its age but the blade may have been a wooden or plastic replacement to demonstrate the appearance of the original. I infer that Miss Greenberg has a fondness for studying history and was given or legally purchased this ancient Roman artifact. This speaks well of her varied interests.

However, given the political / cultural disagreements of the past few years the question must now be asked: is this an occasion of cultural appropriation? Can Miss Green document her Roman ancestry in order to possess this artifact legally or at least ethically? Is this gladius a looted artifact that should be returned to the descendants of the long-ago people who manufactured it?

Yes, I'm being snarky. Miss Green appears to be professional and ethical in her reporting, and I very much appreciate her obviously good care of an ancient artifact. Indeed, I am somewhat envious; I would like very much to have a gladius in any condition.

But as St. Thomas More says to the Duke of Norfolk in A Man For All Seasons, "I show you the times." Our country's museums were quite wrong in collecting the remains of First Nations peoples, and although perhaps originally well-intentioned in their displays of clothing, domestic appliances, horse trappings, blankets, and tools it is quite right that now all these things should be return to their proper custodians.

But everything that is manufactured is the product of a culture or series of cultures, a time, and a place. Many pocketknives have been excavated among other debris at the Little Bighorn, evidence of Custer’s soldiers desperately using them to extract the jammed soft-copper shells from their overheating rifles. The presence of these knives in an American museum is just right, but what of a pre-historic bone knife found in a dig in, say, Syria. Whose is it? Who decides? What about a rusty British army pocketknife plowed up in a field in Belgium? What is the cutoff date for determining rightful possession, and what are the borders and boundaries?

Should Turks return Constantinople (which they were pleased to rename Istanbul) to the Greeks?

Indignant accusations of cultural appropriation has become a self-destructive fashion reflecting jealousy and insecurity, and the illogic of the very concept eludes many people. Eyeglasses, for instance, can be argued as having been invented in China or one of the Italian states (Italy didn’t exist until the 19^th century) around 1300, and possibly by our busy Romans 2,000 years ago. It does not thus follow that no one but Chinese or Italians should be permitted to wear eyeglasses.

Cultures blend; the dialectic of thesis / antithesis / synthesis is what make civilization dynamic. Without the interplay of music, art, science, literature, engineering, medicine, and all the other practices of cultures enriching each other we would decline into a series of isolated museums of unimaginative peoples clinging to a closed loop of non-progress.

I am happy that Miss Greenberg owns an ancient Roman gladius (the length of whose blade might be illegal where she lives). It is because she is not a Roman that she is more empowered to share another culture around the metaphorical table at which we all may feast.

-30-

Alexander the Coppersmith - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

 

Alexander the Coppersmith

 

2 Timothy 4:14

 

We don’t know much about the coppersmith

(Indeed, we don’t know much about each other)

The works of an artist’s hands may serve the Lord

Or else they serve Ephesian vanities            

 

If a man is going to mold metals into idols

Diana of Ephesus might be pleasing aesthetically

But better to dismiss Diana and other trumperies

And joy in the gold of the Servant’s words

 

For power and jewels and golden toilet bowls

Are baubles that blind our eyes and darken our souls

 

(But still, I hope Alexander made things right)

The Stone, the Shell, and the Lance - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Stone, the Shell, and the Lance

 

-Wordsworth, Prelude, Book V, line 70 and following

 

Mathematics were always quarried stones to me

A chaos of integers, carries, and sums

Cascading down a dusty, crumbling slope

And piled up as a useless heap of rubble

 

But words, layered words, curving and dancing words

Are shimmering shells in stilly tidal pools

There waiting for my eyes, my thoughts, my speech

To play them, work them, hold them as chalices of truth

 

And the lance? The knight, he wields his wicked lance

Only to herd poor prisoners into algebra

Creation Sings Hatikvah - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Creation Sings Hatikvah

 

The Torah unrolls in a soft, whispered wind

The wanderer finds shade under its protection

The scholar refreshes himself with its words

The nations sit and attend to its truths

 

Creation sings Hatikvah, sings our Hope

 

The voice of God is in the whispered wind

His Words from before the first ever dawn

Flowing through the Beginning and even now

A blessing upon Jerusalem, upon the world

 

Creation sings Hatikvah, sings our Hope

 

Our voices too are in the whispered wind

The Torah unrolls for us in a whispered wind

 

Creation sings Hatikvah, sings our Hope

But Mom, All the Cool Kids are into Genocide! - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

But Mom, All the Cool Kids are into Genocide!

 

“Students! Be the Fuhrer’s Propagandists!”

 

Nazi poster ca. 1933, per Library of Congress: [Studenten seid Propagandisten des Führers Hoch-u. Fachschulen bekennen sich am 29. März zur Deutschen Freiheitsbewegung / (loc.gov)]

 

All the cool kids are into genocide

Slogans and posters and bullhorns and cries

Abandoning their studies to march outside

And scream the same 2,000-year-old lies

 

The InterGossip commands, and they obey

Blocking the streets and clenching each fist

Waving misspelt signs and yelling all day

Never pausing to ask if there’s something they’ve missed

 

Am I a hollow echo for some sycophant’s squall?

Will I fail to think for myself at all?

 

Dostoyevsky and Applesauce 2 / $5 - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Dostoyevsky and Applesauce 2 / $5

 

Literature in the Supermarket

 

The nice young man who bags my purchases -

He spoke to me of Notes from Underground

And who the unreliable narrator is

And how he anticipates the revolution

 

The pharmacist who jabbed me against the ‘flu –

He spoke to me of Robert E. Howard

And how Conan’s psychological issues

Anticipate the author’s death by suicide

 

A surprising conversation in a small-town grocery

But even more in a modern university

The Aeolian Harb and the Aeolian Tree-Stump - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Aeolian Harp and the Aeolian Tree-Stump

 

Every tree is an Aeolian harp

Singing the Daily Office of the wind

Not often the night’s Matins and Lauds so much

But with the breezy dawn the service of Prime

 

And I know an Aeolian tree-stump too

Of deeper voices through its mysterious hollows

Wind whispering into the damp, dark earth

Then booming out into the air again

 

Every tree is an Aeolian harp

But a tree-stump can be musical too

18 October 2023 - When Missiles Fall Upon Our Vanities

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

18 October 2023 - When Missiles Fall Upon Our Vanities

 

When missiles fall upon our vanities

And children die among our smoking ruins

Will we dare plead our weak excuses to God:

“This isn’t what we meant…”

If Children Ask for Bread Will We Give Them a Statement? - a sentence which is not a poem at all

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

If Children Ask for Bread Will We Give Them a Statement?

 

“The Roman Catholic–Orthodox Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue produced a statement this past June on the vexed issue of papal primacy and the timely topic of synodality.”

 

Well of course they did.

 

 

[What Is ‘Eucharistic Ecclesiology’? | Commonweal Magazine]

A Deer and I Surprised Each Other - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Deer and I Surprised Each Other

 

Silence

We paused

We looked

She leaped

 

I said

Goodbye

But she

Was gone

 

And I

Was left

There all

Alone

People are Dying by the Thousands - Let's All Go Buy Slogan Tees - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

 

People are Dying by the Thousands – Let’s All Go Buy Slogan Tees

 

XL, L, M, S, and Petite

Guaranteed Ethically-Sourced Materials

 

Domestic carnage now filled all the year

With Feast-days; the old Man from the chimney nook,

The Maiden from the bosom of her Love,

The Mother from the Cradle of her Babe,

The Warrior from the Field – all perish’d, all

 

Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1805-1806, Book X, 356-360

 

We busy ourselves in our accustomed ways:

Dishes to wash, the still-green lawn to be mowed

The vacuum cleaner to annoy the household pup

A book, a chair, a reverie, a glass of tea

 

But then

 

The evening news is a call to our conscience

With offerings in two senses only

Tastefully muted sounds and filtered visuals

Across a couch with a motorized recline mode

 

Dead bodies fuzzed out on the evening news

And peace-loving intellectuals chanting

        “Gas the Jews!”

Will There be Coffee after the Crucifixion? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

 

Will There be Coffee after the Crucifixion?

 

Everything’s going to be discovered

And understood in the course of time,

Only we have to go on thinking

 

-Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”

 

Not all are crucified, but all are wounded

We bring our gifts to the Altar; they fall apart

In secretly clinging to them for ourselves

Our claims to be defined by an era

But rotting corpses in a tangled wood

The celebrant elevates the Host

We lift unfocused eyes in grave pretense

Inattentive at the Wedding of worlds

 

The Mass is the central Act in Creation -

Not all are crucified, but all are wounded

A Tale of Herschkowitz - a brief narrative

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Tale of Herschkowitz

 

602^nd Tank Destroyer Battalion

 

My father, who was a master sergeant in the Second World War, told this story of one of his armored car’s crew, Herschkowitz. Towards the end of the war, probably in the area of Zwickau, Herschkowitz was flirting with some pretty German girls. This was probably one of the sanest moments in Europe in 1945.

 

Later my father said, “Herschkowitz, I didn’t know you spoke German.”

 

Herschkowitz replied, “I don’t, sergeant, but I know Yiddish and we all understood each other pretty well.”

 

Thus endeth the lesson.

 

-30-

(Untitled / flashback to Viet-Nam / not for publication)

 

93.  14 October 2023, Saturday in Ordinary Time

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Flashback (not for publication)

 

 

Domestic carnage now filled all the year

With Feast-days; the old Man from the chimney nook,

The Maiden from the bosom of her Love,

The Mother from the Cradle of her Babe,

The Warrior from the Field – all perish’d, all

 

Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1805-1806, Book X, 356-360

 

We busy ourselves in our accustomed ways:

Dishes to wash, the still-green lawn to be mowed

The vacuum cleaner to annoy the household pup

A book, a chair, a reverie, a glass of tea

 

But then

 

The evening news is the call of our conscience

The evening news is a long-ago call-back

With offerings in two senses only

Tastefully muted sounds and filtered visuals

 

Not

 

The concussions, the stench, the stickiness of blood, the dust on our lips, the screams we deny, the tears we swallow the impossible pulse that makes breathing gasping hyperventilating fragments stinging the skin concussions concussions concussions make them stop make it all stop running running running over there drag him to the ditch hurry hurry hurry you can treat him there he’s dead his eyes are open to the gravel go back again hurry hurry hurry breathe breathe breathe

 

Why is this happening again why is this happening again

 

Stop

 

That child is dead

 

Stop it

 

What’s that? A dead soldier. He is so small

 

Stop it

 

So many bodies, shrunken into their clothes

A still-clawed arm sticking out from a bundle

 

 

Dead bodies fuzzed out on the evening news

Non-combatant commandos channeling their views

And darling little undergrads shrieking, “Death to the Jews”

My Concealed-Carry Jewish Space Laser (Shhhhhhhhhhh...!) - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

My Concealed-Carry Jewish Space Laser

 

In my state you can carry a switch-blade knife

And shoot an AR with 30-round magazines

Or a .50-calibre Barrett for vaporizing a life

Tote brass-knuckles in your camouflaged jeans

 

In my state

 

Few methods of murder are regulated

But if you read Anne Frank you could be investigated

Three Cigarette Lighters - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Three Cigarette Lighters

 

 

And in what landscape of disaster
       Has your unhappy spirit lost its road?

 

-Thomas Merton, “For my Brother”

 

 

I was strolling along for my digestion and health

Inspecting the refreshing October winds

Counting the summer-tired leaves floating to earth

And noting the brightness of autumn’s yellow flowers

 

Off in the weeds a cigarette lighter presented itself

It didn’t work. A second cigarette lighter did

A useful souvenir of my evening walk

And then a third – three cheap lighters, all in a row

 

A cocaine trail of disposable dreams

Disposable lighters, disposable lives

 

"Choose You This Day Whom You Will Serve"

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

“Choose You This Day Whom You Will Serve”

 

“…for whom war was a fresh terror and the corpses of real people…” 

-Matti Friedman, Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

 

A little child ripped from her dead mother’s arms

          Is not a petition for border adjustments

A grandfather murdered while waiting for the bus

          Is not a parliamentary point of order

Teenagers stripped, raped, beaten, tortured, and shot

          Are not cool chants in a university quad

A rotting fragment of a beheaded baby

          Is not someone’s tee-shirt slogan

An elderly woman still marked from Buchenwald

          Is a child of God, not a bargaining chip

 

No deflections

No whatabouts

No evasions

No excuses

 

No

Choose you this day whom you will serve.

7 October 2023 - Anger and Futility

                                                                         7 October 2023

Must Anne Frank be murdered again and again? I cannot write anything meaningful today; I can only sputter in anger and futility.

 

“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

 

St. Matthew 2:18

Southern Belle Antiques 'N' Stuff - a little East Texas Gothic for Ya

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Southern Belle Antiques ‘N’ Stuff

 

(Slow sibilant bathroom-slipper-shuffle)

 

“Oh, don’t close the door, honey, oh no

If the door is closed no one will know I’m open

English Romantics? Here’s an Edgar Allan Poe

I read lots of books myself; do you like westerns?”

 

(Dark narrow paths tunnel through dark moldy heaps)

 

“I paid fifty dollars for that bolt cutter

It’s almost new; I bought it for my daddy

My brother locked him out of his own house

You can have it for twenty; I live upstairs”

 

(The shambling slippers follow me to the door)

 

“It’s a shame that girls don’t play with dolls anymore

Come back anytime; I’m mostly open”