Unicorn Evils Run Us Through

I have been thinking about how many of my friends on Facebook have sent messages about now is the time to act. We must resist. We must get over the loss and shock of having been defeated. Yet I don’t feel that way. Sometimes we must sink low to rise again. Sometimes we must be willing to feel the angst and not try to flinch from it. In such moments, when I walk in the year watching the last of the leave untether and drift groundward, I remember the deep, resonate voice of Dylan Thomas reading his poem to her dying father. In the second stanza, he cried out. Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

The words that kept ringing in my head were “unicorn evils run them through,” because that is what Trump and his lackeys have propounded, evil lies about people who are not white and properous and well educated, those outsides who, as far as they are concerned, should remain outsiders. But equally important was the next line, “split all ends up they shan’t crack,” because, yes, we may be defeated, we may, and probably have, gotten something wrong, had a deep misunderstanding of at least 50% of the population, but we can accept that, we can acknowledge we misread the fear and doubt and worry of many people whose lives have been stricken by inflation and by the rapidly digetal revolution that has, against their will, and often against thier understanding, is transforming thier lives. We can admit it yet not crack.

When we have gone down deep enough into what we got wrong, we can rise again. There is not hurrying this process. Not quick retake. It will take time. But we shall rise again. When we do, may we have a better understanding of what we need to know and what we need to pay attention to so we can hear what we missed hearing and reach out to those we didn’t see and invite them to walk with use toward a better, and, I would hope, inclusive future.