Responses Past and Present
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Responses Past and Present Jonathan Chaves
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Où est la vaillance d'antan? Où sont les neiges d'antan? —Villon How have we lost our courage, O my Muse! The daily headlines surely must confuse The reader who’s aware of how men acted In history when not by fear distracted. Recall how Noah, led by God, set sail, The last man standing, who knew if he’d fail The human race would perish, and all creatures, Unless God re-created their dear features. Two words he banished from vocabulary: What if. . .? As Noah undertook his very Dangerous mission, ‘til olive branch and dove Showed him and his the power of Faith and Love. Or watch Odysseus departing Troy, As hostile gods upon his route deploy
His most recent book is Cave of the Immortals: The poetry and prose of bamboo painter Wen Tong (10191079) (Floating World Editions, 2017).
Jonathan Chaves is professor of Chinese at George Washington University: [email protected].
J. Chaves
Skylla, Charybdis, Polyphemus, and Circe, who would touch men with her hand And turn them into beasts, fate worse than death! The Sirens too, whose songs might cut the breath Of men intoxicated by their beauty, Or brought to Lotus Land, stripped of their duty. Columbus, Muse, bring back, with his ships three Across the vast Atlantic sailing free Unfrightened by what on the other shore He might encounter—full of hope in store. Again, O Clio! conjure pioneers Venturing on the plains through months and years With wives and children, seeking a new world While savage tribes their war-flags there unfurled. Shall we go on? Today these men are spurned By our “historians” who have not learned The lessons thou dost teach, instead revise Your annals to denounce all enterprise. Could we be their mere students? Could we be Participants in decadence, as we Confront a new disease in panicked terror? Are we prudent? Or in tragic error? Is man a striving Angel, or machine? An aspirant to Holiness, or mean In aspiration? From what we have seen Today he only yearns for quarantine. Face to Face I miss my students! Keeping up the pace By teaching them on-line now faute de mieux; But still I miss them, since there is—parbleu! No substitute for teaching face to face.
Responses Past and Present
I try to show them passion, also grace, But on a screen—although that be my goal— There’s nothing but an image, there’s no soul: No substitute for teaching face to face. Technology has put us in a race To do things faster, easier, but, no, It’s really not a better way to go, No substitute for teaching face to face. My love for Shakespeare I can surely trace To Midwood High School, where a man named Joe Grebanier simply read him, strong and slow! Electrifying me, just face to face. Oh Lord, this virus is a real disgrace, Infecting, killing, striking people who Are on their knees and praying that, soon, You Will let us meet each other face to face.
A Ballade of the Coronavirus Coronavirus blares from the TV, In memos from authorities as well: You’d think the il
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