Poem for Wednesday and <lj comm

A Renewal
By James Merrill

Having used every subterfuge
To shake you, lies, fatigue, or even that of passion,
Now I see no way but a clean break.
I add that I am willing to bear the guilt.

You nod assent. Autumn turns windy, huge,
A clear vase of dry leaves vibrating on and on.
We sit, watching. When I next speak
Love buries itself in me, up to the hilt.

--------

Most of Merrill's poems are quite long, and very few of them are available in electronic archives. I've had the Collected Poems sitting on my table since last year meaning to type a bunch of them in but I haven't done it yet. There are some excellent links here.

There are a few people on my flist who seem like they are angry all the time, sometimes at people who are caught up in various political problems as much as the people causing the problems. I can't functionally sustain that level of anger, and I truly don't think it's productive to expend so much energy on ranting and alienating people who could be allies. However, these bloggers are completely on top of everything I loathe and despise about the current U.S. administration, which is why I continue to read their journals diligently.

This morning's news (via ) that had escaped me attention elsewhere is John Ashcroft subpoenaing medical records from Northwestern University Hospital on patients who had so-called partial-birth abortions, as part of a Department of Justice investigation into a medical practitioner who has challenged the constitutionality of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. How in hell do we live in a country where this flagrant lack of privacy is possible?

This is also personal to me: I chose Northwestern as the hospital where my eldest son would be born after a case in Chicago (my home at the time) where the state's attorney tried to force a woman to have a c-section against her will, after her doctor testified that her placenta might rupture and harm the fetus. The woman had religious objections to the surgery, and the state's attorney was trying to haul her in for criminal conduct after she fled a city hospital where she was being threatened with surgery without her consent. Northwestern admitted her and let her give birth (to a healthy baby, via vaginal delivery) in privacy. There were threats of legal and criminal action against the hospital and doctors, which were eventually dropped. It would have been a lot less expensive to have had my first child at a different hospital but after that, I never had any doubt that I wanted to deliver at Northwestern.

People ask me why I'd consider voting for Kerry given his absentee record, his votes on the war and various funding issues, etc., the same way people asked me why I'd vote for Al Gore over their pretty boy Nader last time around, and I have the same answer: I WILL VOTE FOR ANYONE WHO CAN KEEP GEORGE BUSH OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE. When someone invests the money and rouses the support to bring forth a third-party candidate who can win a national election, I will applaud. Until then, I will vote and campaign passionately for the person most likely actually to succeed in November, which for better or worse will be whoever gets the Democratic nomination, and while Kerry has never been my first choice and I've said so, he's also never been my last, because I think he has a better chance of winning than several of them ever did.

Getting Bush out is the number one priority. The egos of the various candidates involved and their staffs and supporters simply don't register. And anyone still stupid enough to believe there would have been no difference between Bush and Gore shouldn't be reading this journal anyway, because I think you're a short-sighted idiot.

: "Living Well Is", for the revenge challenge. Luthor family angst, again.