We Have Such Potential; We Know We Are A Mix Of Good And Bad And Everything In Between That Motivates Our Behaviors Poem by Dennis Ryan

Wednesday morning, May 17, 2023 at 9: 06 and 9: 14 a.m.;
Friday morning, May 19, 2023 at 9: 44 a.m.; Saturday morning, May 20,2023 at 8: 16 a.m.; Monday morning, May 22, 2023 at 9: 40 a.m.

"Man is the measure of all things."
—a Renaissance maxim

"What is this quintessence of dust?
Man delights not me, nor women either."
—Skakespeare's HAMLET, Hamlet questioning the nature and constitution of human beings in one of his famous soliloquys

"As [Kit] looked about the quiet garden she had the impression
that for the first time since her childhood she was seeing objects
clearly. Life was suddenly there, she was in it, not looking
through the window at it."
—Paul Bowles, THE SHELTERING SKY, from Chapter 24

We have such potential; we know we are a mix
of the good and the bad and everything in-between
that motivates our behaviors. We have this potential,
but personal fears and self-interest win the day almost
always—always? —and we cannot find our ways out
of the morasses, moral, literal and otherwise. I love you.
What if I dare say, "I love you! " Dare it? Does anything really change? Can that dangerously-deep swamp be traversed?
Then? I wish I knew. Love can do many things, result in unhesitatingly ' heroic' action, or blow up in our faces, creating an atmosphere of doubt and hesitation, a questioning of the nature and the sources, the very wellsprings of that love. It all depends. It's case by case. Take Kit and Port, for instance. When Port dies, and Kit finds his lifeless corpse, she smoothes the forehead "with infinite delicacy", puts her lips on the brow
a final time, but sheds no tears; only "a silent leave-taking"
takes place, and she finally feels free, liberated, refinding
"the joy of being … that she would hang onto … no matter
what the effort entailed." Infinite Hope rides shotgun for Love, these four-letter words that go together so well. So well. Welling together—this is possible, that, that potential, what we need strive for, this striving for community, solidarity in the face
of a nation, cities that have no soul, streets that bear the naked footprints of poverty, despair and defeat, streets in the past
that preached endless hope, potential and wealth to the chosen.
So we have chosen: "a ruined ethic". Full of ourselves, and
the myths, the myths most murderous—"stake and faggot".