Spirit Of Our Time Poem by gershon hepner

The spirit of our time
escapes, becoming stuff
of legend, which no rhyme
can run with fast enough
to catch up or preserve,
and as its shadow races
we miss it, while we swerve,
retreating from its traces.
Although we think we know it,
and capture what it means
the spirit leaves the poet
far from its radar screens.

Inspired by what Amos Oz says, cited by Liesl Schillinger in “Imagining the Other, ” a review of his “Rhyming Life and Death, ” translated by Nicholas de Lange, and “The Amos Oz Reader” (NYT, May 24,2009) :
In 2005, Oz traveled to Frankfurt to accept the Goethe Prize, in recognition of his contribution to world literature. He spoke then of how, “even when Goethe was still alive, the spirit of his time was slipping away, becoming the stuff of legend. That is normal; that is the way human life and memory, like human houses and streets, flow and ebb as history moves on.” Considering the continuing Israeli-¬Palestinian struggles, contrasted against the bitter record of World War II, he suggested that “The ultimate evil in the world is not war itself, but aggression.” How to fight it? “I believe that imagining the other is a powerful antidote to fanaticism and hatred, ” he said. “It is, in my view, also a major moral imperative.” This charged speech is the final entry in “The Amos Oz Reader, ” and yet even the darkest chapters in this collection display the simple “deep and very subtle human pleasure” Oz takes, and has always taken, in his imaginative duties. In defining the myriad faces of the other in Israel, he reveals himself again and again as a vigilant watchman over the land.

5/24/09