Is Your Town Ninevah?
Why so desolate?
in phantasmagoria about fishes,
what disgusts you? Could
not all personal upheaval in
the name of freedom, be tabooed?
It is Ninevah
and are you Jonah
in the sweltering east wind of your wishes?
I, myself, have stood
there by the aquarium, looking
At the Statue of Liberty.
This Marianne Moore poem references several things. One is Jonah, who is sent by God to evangelize in Ninevah, which is across the river from the town of Mosul, in Iraq. Ninevah was the capital of the Assyrian empire (Assyrian?) which was almost like a Nazi empire for the Jews. Their art consisted of paintings of headless and chopped up Jews. An unpleasant place, but that's where Jonah was chosen to go. He went the other direction, but ended up having to do what God told him to do. And he ended up creating a bastion of Christians which persists until this day (half a million Christians in or near Mosul right up until the beginning of the war).
The last line of the poem references the aquarium that once stood in Battery Park (knocked down by Robert Moses in a fit of pique).
Liberty isn't license, I think she says some place.
I don't know to whom the poem is addressed. She seems to ask us whether our life is in tune with God's wishes for us, and whether it isn't a bit like being tossed to the Assyrians, and having to make do. Are you out evangelizing? I sort of am, but via the internet, which is cheating. Hiding in the belly of the whale. Is that a metaphor for something? At least he gave himself up on the ship, when the waters were calling for him. Maybe the reason America is all screwed up is that someone's not really listening to what she's supposed to be doing.
Monday, September 28, 2009
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5 comments:
Kirby,
I think Jonah would have had a difficult time making Christians.
Jews, yes. Christians, no.
jonah means dove in hebrew
a little irony
standing by the aquarium looking at liberty
the fish are free
but in the aquarium
liberal libertarian liberty
library librocacy
libretto
ad lib
fire in the belly of a whale
it sounds to me like the question is being asked
are you willing to speak truth to the decay and degradation of your own town
i don't know
jonah never really succeded
didn't he end up sitting under a palm tree bitching at god for wasting his time
and then god destroys the tree with a worm
man o man
if your town is nineveh
my advice is to find a worthy tarshish
and try to go there
before trying to tell the people how to shape up
obama is saying he thinks the kids should stay in school longer
school all year round
i think he's wrong on that one
kids should spend more time at home
learning how to grow gardens
and talking to the clouds
life is not the aquarium it is the sea
with all the turbulence anyone can ever handle
limes anyone
school is a little over-rated
never let school stand in the way of your education (SLC)
jonah lit a fire in the belly of the whale
ooo mama
gonna burp him out
j
"obama is saying he thinks the kids should stay in school longer
school all year round"
this has been th attitude since Ike and as you know we all said:
"I like Ike"
"education" is our #1 industry! a real "money-maker"
1.3 million students reading the same bookand
answering the same test questions...
that's "real" eduction...
no wonder our Kulchur is going down the drain!
and
It s no better anywhere else..maybe worse...
not an whole lot of differences between The Educated and The Ignorant.
I don't know if those evangelized as Jews later became Christian or not. They are the last people on earth who speak Aramaic, which was Christ's mother tongue.
Did Jonah speak that language?
Kids need parents.
School is an afterthought.
what the kids really need is a mother and father who care about them, and have some time for them.
That's where all the learning occurs.
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