Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Responsibility

McCain's concession speech was the essence of grace and class. I wish we'd seen more of the traditional McCain dignity during the campaign. The crowd was as classless as he was gracious.

Obama's speech was stirring but humble. Shades of Douglass, Lincoln, and King. Like the cheering crowds all around Atlanta and Chicago and New York, I'm ecstatic, but I'm glad Barry's sober. We have a lot of work to do.

Okay, normal hockey operations will resume tomorrow.

At last we were masters of our heads,
masters of the city,
masters of our shadows
and our equinox.

Someone fired a shot to celebrate,
but only the kind with a cork
tied to a string.

And then we opened the cages
And ferrets ran out.
Out of the skull ran brown and white
spotted rats.
Out of the heart flew
blood-soaked cuckoos.

Out of the lungs
a condor rose, croaking with rage
because of the way his plumes had been squashed
in the bronchi. 

Even a panther showed up,
on the loose from an obsolete circus,
starved, ready to eat
even the Emperor Claudius.

You could hear squeaks in the streets-
the groans and shouts
of expiring fiends. 

And at last we were masters
of our new moon. 

But we couldn't step out
 of our doorways;
someone might cast
a spell on us.

We might even 
be responsible 
for ourselves. 

- Miroslav Holub, "At Last"

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