"And through the whole appearance runs some continuity" ii

To one's edified surprise, a belated glance at search terms drawing the most viewers to this page, reveals that the title, Les bien-veillantes, from 2006 tops the list, even above the page's name. (Now, that is not surprising). One winces to think that a thirst for any writing on some of the darker subjects of human experience might introduce this page.

To put it somewhat narrowly, but nevertheless correctly, that novel is about the misconduct of warfare. To put it correctly, if somewhat summarily, that phrase may be an incurable taut-ology. Warfare presents itself, first, as the state's seduction of one's gender to be raised as beasts, per-suading them to view their metamor-phosis with pride. To be commingled, in the state's great dirigible of blood; to be prodded about by discipline and morale to prick another dirigible until the latter empties sooner, is an exper-ience not shared with other herds of the Earth, only with predators. Sup-pose, 'though, we carry them in life, more than any child they could have?

The sea canes by the cliff flash green and silver;
they were the seraph lances of my faith,
but out of what is lost grows something stronger


that has the rational radiance of stone,
enduring moonlight, further than despair,
strong as the wind, that through dividing canes


brings those we love before us, as they were,
with faults and all, not nobler, just there.








Derek Walcott
Sea Canes
  Sea Grapes, 1976©
Collected Poems, 1948-1984
The Noonday Press
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986©