Laws Poem by gershon hepner

They make things happen in the world, like spells,
but only work if men believe in them;
belief gives them the power that compels
rejection of the men that they condemn,
while disbelief creates a vacuum
that’s filled eventually with other laws;
they are the rules for games whom zero sum
is either anarchy or social wars.

Inspired by Christopher Benfey’s review of Hilary Mantel’s book “Wolf Hall” (“Renaissance Men, ” NYT Book Review, November 1,2009) :
Thomas Cromwell remains a controversial and mysterious figure. Mantel has filled in the blanks plausibly, brilliantly. “Wolf Hall” has epic scale but lyric texture. Its 500-plus pages turn quickly, winged and falconlike. Trained in the law, Mantel can see the understated heroism in the skilled administrator’s day-to-day decisions in service of a well-ordered civil society — not of a medieval fief based on war and not, heaven help us, a utopia. “When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power, ” Cromwell reflects. “Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.” Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” is both spellbinding and believable.


11/1/09