July 25, 2010
The decision
In the last week, our debate stretched on. What would Scuzzi say, if he could, I asked; as he rested on Jane’s shoulder, what did those sad, amber-green eyes convey? Help me to my end? Or let me live, until I let go on my own? His suffering was evident, but so, too, the family’s anguish. I saw, finally, that I risked becoming something I had come to loathe in years spent in places ruled by ideology — a man capable of placing principle, tortured or otherwise, before kindness, common sense, and the common good.
- NYT
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In such instances, I came long ago to believe in the way of kindness, common sense, and the common good, which is to say that I am with the speaker of Robinson Jeffers’s poem “Hurt Hawks”. I believe in the lead gift.
“Hurt Hawks” is splendid. And here’s another fine Jeffers poem, “To a Young Artist.”
What is most beautiful and terrible to me about “Hurt Hawks” is its metaphorical aspect. I have known hurt human hawks and have found myself at a loss searching for arguments against their giving themselves the lead gift.
Daryl, I had not read “To a Young Artist” till now. Gobsmacked.
Oh God that Hurt Hawks is brilliant.
Oh dear, I know. When my dear friend Homer, the “Viennese Salon Hound” wink wink, came to the end of his own great odyssey, he let me know without ambiguity. I realized how sick he was and burst into tears. This dog had always pushed me with his nose and paw when I was sad, kept at it until he pushed me over, even, until I started laughing at his audacity, at his persistence. But this last time, heartbreakingly, he turned his head away.
Still I wasn’t able to do the right thing. He died in pain, with me on the phone to the vet in hysterics, begging his assistant to drag him out of surgery and bring him to my house. The vet had warned me. I wouldn’t lisen. It was a terrible lesson and I learned it well.
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