One Hundred and Thirty Five

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita. What does this mean? we ask, pretending not to know.

We keep telling ourselves the same old story in new and different words, so we can pretend not to know what it means.  

I know where I’m going

I know who’s going there with me

I know who I love

But the devil knows who I’ll marry.

We set out on life’s journey thinking that while we may not know everything, we know enough. But sooner or later we lose our way, as Dante did.

Beatrice sent Virgil to lead Dante back to the Western god. But now we’ve lost faith in all our gods, and don’t have enough faith left to invent new ones.

Westerners see loss of faith as a disaster. They follow charlatans who promise to lead them back to their god, as Virgil led Dante, because they assume their way is the only way. Easterners see it as a revelation that our world and its gods is an illusion, but Westerners go on fighting the same war because they'd rather die than admit the gods who bless their battles are illusions. 

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall.

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.

“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.” 

“None,” said he, “save the undone years,

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours

Was my life also. I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world,

Which lies not calm in eyes or braided hair,

But mocks the steady running of the hour;

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.

For by my glee might many men have laughed

And of my weeping something had been left

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled

Or, discontented, boil bloody, and be spilled.

They will be swift, with swiftness of the tigress. 

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery;

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery.

To miss the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels, 

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,

Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.

I would have poured my spirit without stint

But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now. . . .” 

A hundred years ago this month he wrote this, and still we're sleeping.