After the liberal autonomous subject: a lament.

AuthorEberly, Rosa A.
PositionEssay

I I stand before y'all today heteroglossic, polyphonic: (1) Homoioi: (2) we are all the same. Y'all's tongues are in my mouth, (3) a thousand other tongues, in my mouth: I cannot name them all. I stand before you today and try to make sense: Invention Arrangement Style Memory Delivery; (4) Fact Definition Value Cause Procedure. (5) Denial. Anger. Bargaining Depression. Acceptance? (6) "In the gloom, the gold gathers the light against it." (7) Canto XI, page 51. Our Cantos, Jim. We knew them. But I knew you hardly at all. II

Because of the sorts of minds Jim and I were given at birth, and in spite of their disorderliness, Jim and I belong to an artificial extended family, which allows us to claim relatives all over the world.

We are kindred to rhetoricians all over the world. This is amusing and comforting --and sometimes exasperating--to both of us. It is nice.

It is lucky, too, for human beings need all of the relatives we can get--as possible donors or receivers not only of love, but of common decency. (8)

III "Ah Carl, while you are not safe, I am not safe." (9) IV Jim Aune Chimmy Jimmy James --or, as a maladroit drycleaner once labeled his clothes, "James Amt Anus...." Jim, my friend, it seems, understood me. I knew him hardly at all. V Whatever I say, I am thinking that eikos, likely, it is true of y'all, too. We knew him hardly at all. He understood us because he cared to understand us. "It is the brain; it is the brain; it is the brain." (10) My greatest sorrow--maybe--is that I can no longer make him laugh. And, hearing him in despair, that I can no longer make him feel better. O, Jim: I knew you hardly at all. "How I loved that man." (11) How we each and all loved that man. VI "Of those so close beside me, which are you? "What falls away is always, and is near. "I wake to sleep and take my waking slow. "I know by going where I have to go." (12) VII Brad and I on Highway 79--leaking, leaking- Asking each other, "Why are we in Texas, again? Why are we here? How can this be???' (13) O we loved you. And you, us. And we knew you hardly at all. VIII Sorrow is our own yard, Miriam, Where the new grass will flame As is has flamed often before But not with the cold fire That closes 'round us this year. (14) Miriam, you knew him. You saved him time and time again. And we love you, Miriam. IX "There was a decorated general with a heart of gold"--my puer-- "He grew a beard as soon as he could "To cover the scars on his face.... "Go now, you...

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