poetry & peace (2)

THINGS NEAR THEIR BIRTH

The world of this creation, and its poetry, is not yet born.

The possibility before us is that now we enter upon another time, again to choose. Its birth is tragic, but the process is ahead: we must be able to turn a time of war into a time of building.

There are the wounds: they are crying everywhere. There are the false barriers: but they are false. If we believe in the unity and multiplicity of the world, if we believe in the unity and multiplicity of man, then we believe too in the unity and multiplicity of the imagination. And we will speak across the barriers, many to many. The great ideas are always emerging, to be available to all men and women. And one hope of our lives is the communication of these truths.

Muriel Rukeyser, The Life of Poetry, p. 213.