July 04, 2000Independence From...?Our Nation's Natal Celebration is ever referred to by its date, and it marshals Summer’s symbols, as much as those of nationhood. Still, more attention is given to the rubric of this day than to many another official Holiday.Proud of ourselves, we are. And not without some cause. Or, at least, I will allow that America is “The Greatest Country In The World”, and other such patriotic pieties. The thing about Home is that those who live there always feel that way about it. Even the Wasteland is but a debasement of the best place. We are not yet totally debased, but lax, perhaps. Lazing in the lap of Summer, lingering into the long twilight, careless with firecrackers. The incendiaries, in conjunction with the flag, recall not so much our war of origin, as that later, vaguer conflict, the War of 1812. Bombs bursting in air; flag still there...all of that business. We barely remember what that war was about. A generation after the Revolution, Enlightenment ideals had given way to a less philosophical confrontation. Our National Anthem is a relic of that war, and the Park contains another: the Blockhouse, where the flag still flies, albeit with some added stars. Built in 1814, it remains upon the rocky northern height, guarding against a British attack that will not come. George Washington famously warned against foreign entanglements, yet what are we, other than entangled? We pride ourselves on independence, but what are we independent of? Britain? We still rely upon Her language. Our racial and ethnic tensions are rooted to this day in the colonial entanglement of “old” and “new” worlds. The Blockhouse looks out over Harlem, a Dutch name now borne by another people’s ghetto: a presence which unjustifiably dissuades some from visiting the north end of the Park. In America, we exalt the individual, but who among us stands alone? Self and Other; Individual and Community; Citizen and Nation; these are dialectic names for the same old Mystery. We might use this occasion to learn Its ways. A Nation is not Nature, and one cannot closely study the natural world and still feel independent. The body of the Goddess is woven of relationships. Predator and prey are interdependent, conflicting only as individuals. If we no longer need fear being eaten, still we may learn something from those plants which want us to eat them. They are dying for their country, while teaching us the art of cultivation. Is it wrong, then, to feel a puff of Pride? In Self, or Country, is it not justified? Can preen in one, but not the other? Has not Pride its uses? Ah, there forever lies our crisis: The worst sins bear the best excuses. Exalt the All, with individual humility. No contradiction, on a deepening Summer evening. Be glad of Home, but remember that the World beyond defines it. Let each voice join in song, in anthem, the one that we have overwritten, a palimpsest of our desires: And there with good fellows, We’ll learn to intwine The Myrtle of Venus With Bacchus’s Vine. In the shadows gathering beneath the Blockhouse, Fireflies flicker silently. This is their season. Theirs are fireworks worth patronizing. Let the bombs burst where they may. |
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