Upsoaring wings: Turn away your eyes

Dorothy Parker is high on my list of favorite American poets. She wielded words equivalent to a Medici with a sword. Never a wasted syllable; unerringly the blade went straight to the heart. Like a Medici’s, Parker’s skill did not come without loss of her own blood. Her preferred analgesic against an unhappy life was alcohol, and she could put it away, sadly.

In addition to being a brilliant writer of poetry, prose and screenplays, Parker was a lifelong activist for civil liberties and social justice. Her membership in the Communist party and her anti-fascist and pro-union activities earned her a place on the Hollywood blacklist, and she was a supporter of Martin Luther King, Jr. She left her estate to him on her death in 1967; upon his murder a year later, his family bequeathed it to the NAACP.

I really wonder what Parker would have had to say about today’s world. Twitter would have been a great medium for her, because of her ability to thrust deep with few words. What words would she have had for the Kleptocrat and his mob, I wonder?

Today’s entry for National Poetry Month wasn’t intended to be political, but rereading it, I feel like she’s captured the death of the dream of the American promise.

“A Dream Lies Dead”

A dream lies dead here. May you softly go

Before this place, and turn away your eyes,

Nor seek to know the look of that which dies

Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,

But, for a little, let your step be slow.

And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise

With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.

A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:

Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-

Though white of bloom as it had been before

And proudly waitful of fecundity-

One little loveliness can be no more;

And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head

Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!