Now and again the fraternal third
in liberté, égalité, and so forth
leaps off some page or some wall,
or now some floor, as the immort-
al distinction in the celebration
of a certain nationhood, which no
one has ever been able to explain.
I accept the premise that this is
a nationhood of coincidence, many
coincidences, whose full range of
possibility cannot properly be as-
sayed without comparison to ours,
which is a nationhood of policies.
Nothing compelled there to be the
nation celebrated today, but this
compilation of endowments captiv-
ates the mind of the West like no
other, and its birthday arises on
the calendar as that of a brother
one is always chasing - even with
all the time in the world.
Tricouleur
2012
The Barge Children
1959
No comments:
Post a Comment