Where are the Poets who Speak divinely at feasts,
While the Children are Slayed in the prime of youth?²
The ultimate Tragedy is not the brutality of
Bad people but the Silence of good people.³
As though there is no Tongue among us,
So Silent are we in our Obedience.⁴
Without thousands of faithful and blind
Executors of orders, the great savage beasts
Would be Impotent and Disarmed.⁵
How many times can we turn our head
And Pretend we just Don’t See?
How many Ears must we have
Before we can hear people Cry?⁶
The best lack all conviction—
While the worst are full of Passionate Intensity!⁷
The world is dangerous not because of those who do evil—
But because of those who Look—and do Nothing!⁸
No judgements can be made of motives in cases of
World-historical significance—only of Actions.⁹
The hands of none are clean—
If we Bend not our energies to
Righting these great Wrongs.¹⁰
¹ Philip Whalen, For C.
² C.P. Cavafy tr. Rae Dalven, Infidelity
³ Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait
⁴ Homer tr. Samuel Butler, The Iliad
⁵ Primo Levi tr. Raymond Rosenthal, The Commander of Auschwitz
⁶ Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind
⁷ William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
⁸ Albert Einstein
⁹ Rosa Luxembourg, Letter to Paul Levi
¹⁰ W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks